


Men of Fortune

by doctor__idiot



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Adventure, Anal Sex, Hurt!Sam, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Lies, M/M, Oral Sex, Retelling, Sharing a Bed, Sibling Incest, Switching, Threesome - F/M/M, canon adjacent, hurt!Nate, mention of Sam/Rafe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-02-11 10:31:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 30,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor__idiot/pseuds/doctor__idiot
Summary: Nate had always had a love for dangerous situations, nurtured by Sam after setting the initial example. They had always worked well together, silent communication, sensing the other’s position without looking, and it had made them nearly infallible as a team.Until that day in Panama, where they had been surprised by Rafe’s diversion from the original plan and the sheer number of armed guards that had come after them. The memory was a little too hazy now to recall correctly because it had been too devastating to think about, and now it was crumpled, unavailable to Nate, who had spent the last two days trying to figure out what he had missed. How could he not have known that his brother was still alive?A retelling of Uncharted 4 A Thief's End.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, I actually have no idea how I ended up here with 20k+ of Drakecest after I had only just discovered the fandom. This story is canon compliant in parts and canon non-compliant in others, because I'm a rebel like that. I did my best not to make it too repetitive. 
> 
> So far I have finished writing 9 chapters (unedited) and I want to try and upload at least once a week. As of yet, I have no estimate how long this is going to get so strap in and be prepared to stick around for a while.
> 
> Disclaimer: Nothing's mine and sadly I'm not getting paid, either. I might add tags as I go along.

_You would not believe the things I miss,_  
_It’s all the little things that fill that list._  
– Radical Face, _Letters Home_

Sam had been joking earlier when he had asked Nate if he was going to faint, but Nate still felt shaky and vaguely like he was either going to collapse of throw up. Seeing his brother again after so many years had rattled him. He was in complete emotional turmoil, his mind entirely unsure how to process that the death of the person who had meant most to him in the entire world had not actually happened.

Instead, Sam had spent a decade and a half in a Central American prison for a crime he technically hadn’t even committed. And Rafe and Nate had gotten away. It was difficult not to allow the survivor’s guilt to cripple him anew. The first few years after Sam’s apparent death, Nate had been nothing short of a mess. He still had no idea how his friends and his now-wife had put up with him at all.

He was randomly throwing clothes into his suitcase, not even thinking too much about it, because the only thing on his mind right now was Sam. Lying to Elena about where he was going to go had come naturally, he hadn’t even thought twice about it. All that mattered was that Sam needed his help and that Nate would do anything to get him out of his debt to Alcazar.

_I am not losing you again. I won’t._

He had barely been able to take his eyes off Sam long enough to make it to his car, drive home, and pack his stuff. Sam had laughed at him for it.

“Just go, Nathan, I’m not going to disappear on you,” he’d said, amused, but the words had hit too close to home for Nate’s comfort. It was exactly what he was afraid of. The miracle that Sam was even alive and here was so huge that Nate was sure he’d used up his allowance of luck in the universe all in once and he didn’t want to let go of his brother for even a second, in case anything were to happen when he least expected it.

He was drunk on happiness and sick with fear of losing his brother again. He was glad he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast or it would have been on its way up his esophagus right about now.

“Hey, you in a hurry?” Elena had appeared in the door to their bedroom without Nate noticing. He jumped at her voice.

“Yeah. I mean no.” He threw her a smile. “Just excited. Sorry I gotta leave you.”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest, hip leaning against the wooden door frame. “I told you to go, didn’t I? It’ll be good for you.”

Guilt crept up inside of Nate’s throat, making his voice sound hoarse. “Yeah.” He closed the suitcase and looked around.

Elena asked, “Good to go?” She was smiling and Nate hated that he had to lie to her but he didn’t have time to explain and he didn’t want to make things harder for Sam than they had to be. They didn’t know how much Alcazar knew, whether he was watching them, and there was no way he would drag Elena into that with him. He wanted her here in New Orleans, unworried, and out of harm’s way.

“I love you,” he told her on his way out as if it would make up for betraying her. She kissed him goodbye and he tried not to pull away too early, his stomach clenched tight.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back.” That wasn’t a lie, at least. “Could be a couple of weeks, could be longer than that.”

Elena nodded, her smile dimming slightly. “I know. Just … watch yourself, okay?”

He squeezed her hip before turning away to jog down the driveway, lugging his suitcase behind him.

 

Sam had speed-booked their tickets and he was waiting for Nate at the airport when Nate got out of the taxi. He had showered, his hair still damp, and dressed in simple jeans and a T-shirt despite the chilly temperatures. Of course, he was smoking a cigarette. Nate hadn’t expected fifteen years in prison to rid him of that habit. If anything, it had probably made it worse.

“Ready to go?” Sam asked him and it struck Nate again that his voice was deeper than he remembered it being. He had first noticed it when he had talked to Sam at the dock. Maybe it was the smoking, maybe he had simply gotten older.

It was strange how he didn’t look that much older. The last time Nate had seen him, they had both still been in their twenties. He realized that last year must have been Sam’s fortieth birthday.

God, they had lost so much time.

He wanted to hug Sam again, hold on to him and not ever let go. Instead, he clapped his brother on the shoulder and nudged him toward the terminals. “Let’s go.”

Flying wasn’t something that had ever bothered Nate but he did get restless on long flights. Six hours in, Sam’s hand came down on his knee and he flinched in surprise. “Settle down. Go to sleep.”

Nate shook his head. He was too wired to even think about sleep. He felt like he had had five cups of coffee and then downed two more energy drinks on top. Sam’s hand on his leg kept him from jiggling it with nervous energy and the warmth of his brother’s palm seeping through the denim of his jeans helped a little with his restlessness. Sam kept it there for the next hour until he got up to pee and Nate instantly missed the contact.

One and half hours later they landed in London und Nate tried to work the crick out of his neck. His stomach was growling after not having eating for an entire day and they grabbed breakfast at a nearby Costa. Their connection flight was delayed by half an hour, so they hung around a while longer, sipping piping hot coffee.

“If we get the cross,” Nate started, “What do you think is in it? A map to the treasure’s location?”

Sam grinned at him over the rim of his paper cup. “Wouldn’t that be nice? Somehow I don’t think it’ll be that easy.”

“Suppose not.”

They fell silent until they had finished their coffees. Nate tapped the back of Sam’s hand. “So how much time you got left?”

Sam chewed his lips, an uncharacteristically shy action. Although, after fifteen years, Nate had to admit that he might not know what was characteristic of his brother anymore.

“‘bout ten weeks. Took me a moment to get my bearings and find you.”

Nate nodded. “That’s not too bad, we can do ten weeks.”

Sam looked up at him with a half-smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Nathan, we don’t even know if there is a treasure. We could be on a wild goose chase for all we know. I didn’t–” He scowls down at his hands, lips curling sardonically, “I was an idiot to talk about it at all. I just–I guess I didn’t think I’d ever get outta there, is all. It was just a fantasy, something to keep me occupied.”

Nate couldn’t say anything, his chest feeling too tight to speak. He only realized his hand had still been lying on top of Sam’s when Sam pulled away and stood up.

“Let’s catch our plane, come on.”

The last stretch to Italy took less than three hours and Nate slept for almost all of the way. He woke once when the stewardess came by with inquiries about coffee, and then for a second time when the pilot announced the landing descent. In his sleep, Nate had dropped against his older brother’s side like a magnet, his body’s natural reaction to Sam’s presence even after all this time. He rolled his cheek against Sam’s shoulder, trying to shake himself into wakefulness.

“Hey there, Sleeping Beauty.”

Nate dug his elbow into his brother’s side, earning a soft grunt. “Shut up.”

He noticed Sam subtly flexing his fingers after Nate had sat back upright, so his arm had probably fallen asleep with Nate leaning against him. Nate couldn’t feel bad about it, after all Sam could have woken him. The fact that he hadn’t despite his own discomfort made something warm bloom inside of Nate.

They were both stiff and a little cranky by the time they had claimed their luggage. Twelve plus hours cramped in economy class were no joke and Nate didn’t care if he looked weird stretching in the middle of the airport terminal.

They hauled a taxi to drive them to the hotel they had booked for the next two nights. It wasn’t the Hilton or anything but Nate didn’t mind simple accommodation. Preferred it actually. It meant more privacy and fewer questions asked. To save money, they had only rented one room – another thing that Nate didn’t mind.

He and his brother had always shared on their explorations. It was cheaper and it made it easier to throw ideas around and plan their next steps if they were in the same room. They had both been sound sleepers, not bothered by noise thanks to growing up in an orphanage, crowded into one room with ten older boys.

In a way, having one room for the two of them was already a luxury. Maybe that was why he had moved in with Elena so quickly, entirely unused to sleeping alone. He had found it too quiet, too strange not to be able to hear other people’s breathing, giving him a sense of security.

Now, the two of them gathered at the small, round table to lay out their plans for the evening. Sully had left a pair of monkey suits for the party and a set of worker overalls for them for the climb in. The Rossi Estate would be carefully patrolled and they wouldn’t get in without an invitation. Inside, Sully would be waiting for them. After that, they would probably have to wing it since they didn’t really know what to expect. They would have to find a way into storage and who knows what the security system was like. Sully had e-mailed them blueprints of the place but there was always a chance that, for an exclusive auction like this, enhanced security measures were in place. People tended to be on higher alert and they would have to be more careful.

It wasn’t anything they hadn’t managed to pull off before.

Nate had to admit that his brother looked exceptionally good in a tux. They had had to play dress-up for jobs before but back then, both of them had been scrawnier and if not anything else, prison had definitely had a positive effect on Sam’s physique. Nate had always liked exercising to stay in shape but his brother was all muscle now, his broad shoulders filling out the tuxedo almost obscenely.

“Come here for a minute,” he said when he caught Nate staring at him. Quickly, Nate shook himself out of his trance and shrugged into the jacket.

“Help me with this, will ya?” Sam held out his arms, biceps bulging under the crisp-white fabric, motioning for Nate to insert the cufflinks for him. Nate pinched the stiff fabric between his fingers, turning the cufflinks over in his hand. They weren’t anything fancy, simple silver and black, and Nate had completely missed them on the table.

Sam shook out his arms after Nate had finished, adjusting the collar of the shirt. “I hate these things. So restricting.”

Nate had to grin at this brother’s uncomfortable grimace. “The sooner we’re in and outta there, the sooner you can take it off.”

He hadn’t meant for it to sound suggestive, and to Sam it probably hadn’t, but Nate still winced slightly. With the way he had been staring at his brother before, he couldn’t keep his brain from making the non-PG connection.

“Anyway,” he turned around, “We got everything?”

Sam laughed, a low and warm sound that made Nate turn back around. “Not so fast, little brother.” He looped the strip of the bowtie around Nate’s neck, playfully tugging him closer. Nate stumbled a little, surprised, and reflexively steadied himself on Sam’s shoulders.

“Warn a guy,” he says, voice too hoarse. Sam scoffed and pulled tie tight against Nate’s Adam’s apple. His fingers brushed Nate’s chin as he worked and Nate tilted his head back to escape the contact. His hands were slightly shaky and he didn’t even know why.

Sam’s presence was still too foreign to him, still too unreal and so fragile, as if he could vanish into thin air at any moment. Nate was still afraid that he wouldn’t be allowed to keep him.

“All right,” Sam patted him on the chest, “Lookin’ good. Let’s go.”

They quickly hopped into their overalls and hoofed it to a lookout by the Rossi Estate. The climb in went off without a hitch and it was exhilarating to be doing this again, together with his brother. Nate had always had a love for dangerous situations, nurtured by Sam after setting the initial example. They had always worked well together, silent communication, sensing the other’s position without looking, and it had made them nearly infallible as a team.

Until that day in Panama, where they had been surprised by Rafe’s diversion from the original plan and the sheer number of armed guards that had come after them. The memory was a little too hazy now to recall correctly because it had been too devastating to think about, and now it was crumpled, unavailable to Nate, who had spent the last two days trying to figure out what he had missed. How could he not have known that his brother was still alive?

Fresh grief for all the time they had been robbed of, Nate sank to the cushioned chaise in the room in which Sully had been waiting for them. Sam, who had walked ahead of him, stopped, turned. “Everything okay? You didn’t hurt yourself climbing, did you?”

Nate shook his head. “Nah, just glad we made it.” He meant it in every sense of the words and Sam returned his small smile.

“Boys,” Sully interrupted, “There’s time for you to flirt later, we gotta get a move on.”

Sam guffawed a laugh while heat shot into Nate’s face. He pressed into the shadow by the door on their way out, hoping it would hide his blush.

Of course, their stint didn’t go over without complications but all three of them were masters at improvisation by now and they managed to scrape by just so. Hurtling out of the driveway in a stolen limousine, Nate thought about Rafe and what it had felt like to hear his name again, to know he had been here, too, so close to Sam and Sully, and even closer to thwarting their little operation. He was the one who should have rotted in prison for fifteen years, not Sam.

Only, that wasn’t exactly fair. None of them would have deserved to land in prison back then, or maybe all of them would have deserved it, Nate didn’t know. What he did know was that he was furious, angry beyond measure that Sam had been dealt the bad hand instead of Rafe, who had grown up to be even more of an asshole than he had been fifteen years ago.

Sam grabbed his elbow, shouting “We did it!” over the roar of the engine and the howl of the wind. He was dangling Saint Dismas in front of Nate’s eyes but all Nate could see was the white-toothed grin nearly splitting his brother’s face in two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments and kudos are love! x


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for taking so long to get the next chapter up. I had to rewrite parts of it and I'm still not quite happy with it but it is what it is. BTW, I'm sticking to game logic here that a plane like Sully's would be a suitably quick way to get from A to B on their journey, which requires some suspension of disbelief but oh well.

_They said you were the crooked kind,_  
_And that you’d never have no worth,_  
_But you were always gold to me._  
– Radical Face, _Always Gold_

The adrenaline rush of stealing the cross was followed by the excitement of the find inside and the realization that Scotland would be the next stop on their tour. Somehow, this time it was much easier to lie to Elena. It seemed like once Nate had started, it was easier to keep going than to tell the truth. Besides, he had meant it when he had told Sully Elena wouldn’t understand.

It wasn’t that she wouldn’t understand his wish to find the treasure, after all she had been an adventurer herself, but she still didn’t know about Sam and Nate had no idea where to begin on that front. He had no way how to explain what it meant that Sam was back from the dead, had barely talked about it as it was during the past fifteen years despite her occasional urging. Hadn’t know how to put it in words how he felt, what it had meant to have his brother, his everything, taken from him so early. And how could he even begin to sort through it now that he was back, that those fifteen years of crippling grief had been a lie.

“Jesus, Nathan, where are you?”

“Hm?” He sat up straighter on his chair, finding his brother moving around the room, getting ready for bed.

“You’ve been completely lost in thought today. What is it?”

“Don’t you know?” The words slipped out before he could stop them. It would have been easy to just lie, tell Sam he was tired instead of so deeply shaken, that everything was all right when it was anything but.

But even after fifteen long years, he was no better at lying to his brother.

Sam let his jacket drop to the bed, not caring whether it got wrinkled. “I’m sorry, Nathan.”

Nate had no idea what his brother could possibly be sorry for. He should be the one to apologize. “No, I am, Sam. It’s–I can’t believe–” He shook his head, looking up at the unexpected laugh he heard.

It wasn’t mocking, just warm, almost fond, and quiet. “I know, baby bro. Believe me, I know.”

It was Nate’s time to laugh but his was without humor, desperation making its voice heard more than anything else. The long-lost nickname made him want to curl up and cry for everything he– _they_ had lost. He had to get a grip and pull himself out of this … whatever this was. He needed to be focused, they needed to find the treasure so Sam could repay his debt to Alcazar and they could move on with their lives.

“God, I’m exhausted,” he admitted. He hadn’t noticed it all that much during the day, too driven by adrenaline and sheer force of will to notice how tired he actually was.

“Well, let’s go to bed then.”

It struck him then that Sam meant _together_. As in, in the same bed, and then Nate realized that _of course_ that was what he meant because they had only been able to get a double instead of a twin. Nate might prefer that, actually. It might be more familiar to sleep in a bed with another person next to him, even if it was his brother.

He wasn’t about to delve deeper into what that might mean for him.

He trotted to the bathroom to brush his teeth and relieve himself while Sam changed into his pajamas. They essentially consisted of an old T-shirt that Nate had never seen before and a pair of sweatpants that were Nate’s. Naturally, Sam didn't have many belongings after his time in prison. What he did own he had grabbed from some thrift shop, which Nate suspected the shirt was from as well, or Nate had given him. Nate swore to himself that he would take his brother shopping once they got back and had some time for themselves. Meanwhile, Sam would simply have to wear Nate’s clothes and Nate couldn’t help but feel somewhat giddy about that.

They took ‘their’ sides of the bed as if they had never been apart, Sam on the left and Nate on the right. Rolling onto his back, Nate asked, “You think we’ll find something in Scotland?”

Sam moved around, getting comfortable on his side, facing Nate. “Don’t know. I sure hope so.”

“Let’s assume for a moment we find the treasure within your three months. Or ten weeks, as it is.” Nate picked at his cuticles, hands resting on his stomach. “What would you wanna do then?”

The silence stretched long enough that Nate got curious and turned his head to look at Sam.

“Geesh, I don’t know.” Sam gave a small, startled laugh. “Find a job, get an apartment somewhere, see where life leads me, I guess.”

Nate couldn’t stop himself. “Where?”

His brother was looking at him, even smiling a bit. “Don’t know that, either. Somewhere I wanna be.”

The implication was right there and Nate swallowed hard. He wasn’t about to offer Sam to move in with him and Elena, to take the guest room until he had found something for himself, because they could talk about that some other time. For now, they were still on the hunt and for now, there was no place Nate would rather be.

The ebbing adrenaline took its toll quickly and he fell into a restless sleep. He dreamed of goons with guns, his brother calling his name, and the unnatural heat of Sam’s blood gushing through his fingers where he fruitlessly tried to stop the bleeding. The bullets whizzed past him and Rafe was screaming at him to hurry it the fuck up but Nate refused to let himself be dragged away. He wasn’t going to leave Sam, not _again_ , not when there was a chance–

He started from sleep with a gasp, feeling constricted with the way the blanket had curled around him during the night. He freed himself hastily, jostling his brother next to him.

“‘athan?” Sam croaked, eyes blinking open slowly.

Nate hissed into the quiet of the night, “Fine. Go back to sleep,” trying to get his breathing under control.

Sam hummed, muttered something that Nate didn’t catch, then settled back against the mattress. Nate breathed a sigh of relief, sinking back down. Heart still racing, he didn’t dare close his eyes for fear that the images of the dream would return. His head was pounding and he rubbed his temples with index fingers in an attempt at relieving some of the tension.

He jumped slightly when he heard Sam’s voice again, having erroneously thought he had dropped back into sleep. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just a dream.” Nate wasn’t sure whether he was trying to assure Sam or himself. Maybe a bit of both.

Sam gave a sleepy huff, then patted the space between them. “C’mere.”

Nate turned his head. Sam’s eyes were closed, his shaggy hair a mess against the side of his face. “I’m not eight anymore, Sam.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of Sam’s mouth. He nudged Nate’s arm blindly with his knuckles. “I _said_ , come here.”

Nate sighed and rolled onto his side into his brother’s space. There was still a distance between their bodies, their faces, and Nate blew out a breath, let himself melt into the bed, soaking up his brother’s body heat, reassuring himself that Sam was here and alive and not leaving any time soon.

On impulse, he reached out and stroked the knotty hair out of Sam’s face, tugging it behind his ear. His brother gave him a tired chuckle and grabbed his arm, holding it between them. Just a little point of contact but it anchored Nate enough that he felt safe enough to allow himself to drift off again.

He didn’t dream this time around and the cozy darkness of sleep still had a tight grip of him when sunlight tickled his nose and roused him slowly. The body of his wife was lying warm next to him and without opening his eyes, he scooted closer, pressing a hand against her hip, then hugged her around the waist, pressing himself against her back. He thought briefly he could fall back asleep like this but the room was too bright behind his closed lids, morning too far advanced, and he groaned into her shoulder, miserable.

“Morning, sweetheart,” he said, voice hoarse from sleep.

She laughed, “Thanks for waking me, _darlin’_ ,” her own voice rough and definitely, _definitely_ not Elena’s.

“Wha’?” Nate tried to work through the leaden weight of slumber, blinking his eyes open and finding himself face to face with his brother, who was grinning at him widely over his shoulder.

“Christ, I’m sorry,” Nate offered instantly, making to withdraw from Sam’s back, but to his surprise, Sam grabbed his wrist, holding his arm right where it was wrapped around his middle. “Uh, Sam?”

“What is it?”

Nate shook his head. If his brother didn’t think this was weird or in any way inappropriate, then Nate wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it.

Then Sam turned in Nate’s embrace, shifting onto his back and regarding Nate with open amusement. “Dream something nice?”

Nate groaned and scooted away. He hit his brother with the next available pillow, nailing him right in the face, and Sam’s booming laughter came muffled from under it. He was ready for retaliation when Sam crawled out from under the pillow, sitting up in bed, but he made no move to fling it back at Nate, instead hugged the cushion to his own chest. His hair was even more of a mess now but he was smiling and something dangerously close to happiness coiled in Nate’s belly.

There was a knock at the door and both of them startled slightly. Sam was the first one out of bed, yawning, stretching, tugging up his– _Nate’s_ sweatpants that had ridden down during the night. For some reason, Nate felt compelled to avert his eyes from the exposed expanse of tanned skin when Sam absently scratched his hip and stomach on the way to the door.

“Mornin’, Sully.”

Their friend looked impeccable as ever and if they weren’t so closely acquainted, Nate would feel inadequate in his sleep wear. But the guy had practically been like a father to him and there was no reason to feel shame.

“Should’a known you two no-good youngins would still be dead to the world. Have you looked at a clock lately?”

He wasn’t smoking, but probably only because the hotel’s sprinkler system would activate instantly. He frequently complained about the world having turned into a place where nobody could smoke indoors anymore. Nate didn’t have an opinion to offer on the topic since he actually welcomed it. His brother had been a smoker all his life and Nate had tolerated it but never grown to like it.

Nate chanced a look at the nightstand alarm clock that told him that it was going on noon but he couldn’t feel remorse about it. He– _they_ had needed the rest. He imagined Sam hadn’t slept well in prison and probably still didn’t, so any quiet night was a blessing. Truthfully, Nate was surprised he had been the one with nightmares last night instead of his brother. Was Sam having nightmares?

“You already have plans for Scotland?” Nate asked Sully to distract himself from his thoughts while Sam disappeared into the bathroom to shower and get dressed.

Sully took a seat at the round table in their room and suddenly Nate was painfully aware of how this must look to him, being met with the visual of a single bed, two sleep-messy men, and tossed sheets, and Nate could feel his face heating up. He wasn’t about to offer an explanation as it would only make the whole situation more awkward. Maybe Sully didn’t even think anything about.

 _Yeah, nice try_. Who wouldn’t find it strange for two brothers in their late thirties to early forties, one of them married, to share a bed – and happily so, judging by the fact that they had slept long into the day.

Nate cleared his throat, skidding off the bed to go and grab some clothes to wear.

“Well,” Sully began slowly and somehow his tone only served to strengthen Nate’s decision not to look at him, “I know how to get to the island, if that’s what you wanna know. Already figured out the coordinates.”

“Of course you did.” Nate couldn’t help himself and he was pleasantly surprised when Sully bellowed a laugh.

“Doesn’t hurt to get a head start, kid. Especially with you two lazy asses on board.” Sully grinned at him, then patted his jacket pocket. “It’s gonna take a minute to refuel and get the plane ready.”

“We starting out first thing tomorrow?” Nate asked.

“You got it.” The man nodded. “Got plans for today?”

Nate shrugged. “Breakfast’s definitely high up on my list. Other than that? Stay out of trouble, I guess.”

Sully shot him a grin. “I’d say that sounds like a plan but knowing you, it’s gonna take a miracle to make it happen.”

Nate gave the old man a smile in response to the joking dig but his heart wasn’t in it. Naturally, Sully instantly picked up on it, his face growing serious.

“You alright, boy-o?”

Nate swallowed, said, “Just feel bad about lying to Elena, is all.” It wasn’t technically a lie and yet not exactly the truth.

Sully hmm’ed. Nate added, “ _But_ I don’t wanna tell her the truth, so for now this is what’s it’s gonna have to be.”

“What is?” Sam asked, exiting the bathroom, having missed the majority of the conversation.

Nate shook his head to say ‘not important’. “Sully, you mind catching Sam up to speed? I’m gonna take a shower.”

He heard their voices filter through the door as he undressed and stepped into the stall. The small bathroom didn’t have a window and the fog Sam’s shower had left behind still lingered in the air. Here was to hoping his brother hadn’t used up all the warm water.

Nate let the pressure of the shower work out the kinks in his back and the soreness from their endeavor the day before. He had kept in shape but it had been a while since he had had to climb like that. Not to mention all the bruises that speckled his body from his near-fall and several uncomfortable landings. He massaged a particularly painful one right above his hip, digging his fingers into it in that morbid fascination that came with pain.

He sighed, dipped his head back into the stream and rinsed the shampoo out of his hair, washing away the dust and the sweat from yesterday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter. As an aside: None of these chapters are beta'd, only proofread by yours truly and English isn't my first language, so bear with me on any mistakes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of a slow chapter but I somehow really like the atmosphere of it. Hope you enjoy!  
> (Here I hinted at Elena knowing about Sam's 'death' which goes against canon but what else is fanfic for if not to bend canon to your liking?)

_Sure we never had much but we did just as we pleased,  
__We had no concern for anything beyond the day we were living in.  
_ – Radical Face, _Echoes_

Once he had toweled himself dry, he realized he had forgotten to take a fresh set of clothes with him into the bathroom. He didn’t want to have to put his sleep clothes back on, so he grabbed a large towel to wrap around his hips and a smaller one to run through his dripping hair.

“Where’d Sully go?” he inquired from his brother upon re-entering the room and finding the chair by the table empty of the old man’s presence.

“Who knows.” Sam was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, and scribbling something into Nate’s notebook. Nate would have to remember not to put anything too personal in there.

“Still don’t get along with him, do you?” Nate asked as he hunted down some clean underwear among their strewn belongings. Neither he or Sam had ever been particularly tidy and if they were together it was usually just a mess.

Sam raised his eyes from the notebook. “It’s not that. He’s–” He stopped when he took in the huge bruise on Nate’s abdomen. “Hell, Nathan, what happened to you?”

“Told you,” Nate said, suddenly feeling self-conscious and too exposed. He hiked the towel higher. “I broke a ledge when jumping and I kind of hit the side of the building. Not a big deal.”

“Not a–” Sam broke off again and Nate looked down on himself, trying to see if there are more hellish-looking bruises that he had missed in the shower but besides a few smaller ones and some scrapes here and there, there was nothing. Nothing he couldn’t handle or hadn’t had before.

He grabbed his jeans and and a clean white T-shirt. He had never been self-conscious about undressing in front of his brother, or anyone for that matter. Growing up with so many other children around day and night had taken care of that, and while he valued his privacy, it wasn’t a big deal. But right now, he was painfully aware of Sam’s eyes on him and he couldn’t for the life of him say why it was making him so nervous.

He nearly breathed a sigh of relief when he tugged the jeans up over his ass and buttoned the fly.

“We should put something on that,” Sam suggested and Nate had already forgotten what they had been talking about.

“What?”

A sharp pain raced through his abdomen before it was gone again. Sam had poked his finger right into the middle of the bruise. “That there.”

Nate slapped his hand away but he wasn’t mad. He cupped his own hip protectively in case Sam was about to attack again like the asshole big brother he was. Sam simply grinned at him but it had a concerned edge to it.

Nate rubbed the aching patch of skin. “I’m good. If you stop _poking_ me, that is.”

Sam grinned, “Sorry,” not sounding it at all. “Hold on, don’t put on your shirt yet.” He fished through the contents of his suitcase, coming up with a small med kit.

Nate raised an eyebrow at him but Sam only shrugged. “After getting out of Panama, I figured it’d be something worth stocking up on.”

“Smart,” Nate commented, then watched as Sam uncapped the small tube of arnica balm and squeezed some of it out onto his fingers.

“Should’a iced it yesterday, idiot.” Sam didn’t look at him as he said it, an aside more than anything else, before he touched his fingers to Nate’s skin, massaging the cream into the blue- and purple-mottled skin. It was a complete turnaround from his his sibling-like prod at it earlier and Nate sucked in a breath at the gentle contact. Sam’s fingers had warmed the balm, heating up the spot he was coating and Nate shivered slightly at the stark difference to the cool room-temperature air on his naked back and shoulders.

Sam stepped away, nudging his arm. “Alright, get dressed. Let’s grab something to eat, I’m hungry.”

Nate’s voice sounded too thin to his own ears when he asked, “What did Sully say?”

“Nothing much. Just not to, and I quote, “lounge around past noon again like the uncivilized hooligans we are.” He’s quite colorful when he wants to be. Anything you wanna see?”

“See?” Nate returned, the word coming out muffled as he pulled his T-shirt over his head.

“Sights. I don’t know. We’ve got till tomorrow and it ain’t every day we’re in Italy.”

“Have you forgotten that people might still be looking for us?” Nate smoothed his hair down. “Maybe it’s not the best idea to play tourists.”

Sam’s shoulders sank and he blew out an annoyed breath. “You’re right as always, little brother.”

“I’m right? That’s new.”

Sam snorted. “You done, princess? I’m starving.”

Rolling his eyes, Nate contemplated whether the Italian climate was mild enough to allow him to leave his jacket behind. “You already said that. Alright, let’s go.”

They found themselves in a cozy street café not far from the hotel in case they were spotted and had to bolt. Nate kept one eye on their surroundings while he ordered coffee and sandwiches and he caught Sam doing the same. Old habits seemed to be dying hard. The waitress was young, had a pretty smile and spoke English without much of an accent. When she had gone, Nate turned to his brother, steepling the tips of his fingers together.

“So–” he began but Sam cut him off.

“Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

Nate blinked. “I did that already. I told you about the hunts, about what I’m doing now, Elena… I haven’t heard anything from you. I mean, fifteen years, I–” He made a helpless gesture between them and it coaxed a small smile out of Sam, even if it was a sad one.

“There ain’t much to tell, Nathan. I was in prison, what more do you wanna know?”

“Just that,” Nate said, “Start from the beginning.”

Sam sighed and it sounded weary, almost making Nate sorry for pushing. Almost. The waitress brought their coffee and departed again. Sam’s gaze trailed after her before it flicked back to Nate. Nate couldn’t say why his stomach turned at the sight.

“When I got shot and fell off the roof,” Sam started, scratching his chin, “I blacked out.”

Nate clenched his teeth at the memory. He remembered the terror, the agony, painful like nothing he had ever experienced, as if he had been the one to be shot in the stomach three times instead of his brother. It had ripped through him the moment Sam’s hand had slipped from his and he couldn’t even remember how he and Rafe had gotten out of there alive.

“When I came back around, it was in the courtyard, with lots of goons with guns standing around me while I was bleeding out on the ground. You know,” he gave a laugh but there was no humor in it, “For a while there I wish I had because I knew they’d stick me into a cell to rot for the rest of my life.”

He shook himself, loosening his shoulders, while Nate swallowed. He shook his head. His voice sounded thick when he managed, “I’m really glad you didn’t.”

This time, the smile Sam gave him was a real one, if slightly lopsided. “Yeah. Me too.” He took a sip of his coffee, grimacing when he burned his lips. “Anyway, so there I was. It was a long healing process and painful as fuck but I knew they wouldn’t let me die. It would have taken the fun out of the punishment, I guess.”

Nate was momentarily stunned how Sam could sound so casual talking about a time that must have been utter torture but then he caught the clench of Sam’s jaw, the slight tremor in his hands, and he nearly breathed a sigh of relief. It meant that his brother was still human, still feeling, still dealing with everything that had happened.

“I blamed myself for it for a long time, you know?” he heard himself say, then bit his lip as if he could take it back like that.

Sam tilted his head at him. “It was never your fault.”

“I know that. Rationally. Still. The therapist called it ‘survivor’s guilt’ or whatever.” Another thing he would have liked to take back. He checked his coffee cup for any kind of truth serum, maybe whiskey.

Sam gave a brief laugh at him squinting into his coffee cup, then sobered quickly. “You had a therapist?”

“Yeah.” Nate shrugged. “Elena thought it would be a good idea. And I guess she was right. It … helped to talk about it. Your death, I mean. Or non-death, whatever.”

“I’m sorry.”

Nate looked into his brother’s pained face. Their sandwiches arrived and for a moment, there was an awkward silence while the waitress put their cutlery down for them and inquired whether she could get them anything else. This time, Sam did not look after her, his eyes fixed on Nate. Nate couldn’t help but feel a little thrill at being the sole focus of his brother’s attention. It was juvenile but it was what it was.

“For what?” he finally asked.

“You thought I was dead for fifteen years. You had a _therapist_ because you thought I was dead.”

Nate cleared his throat, took a bite of his sandwich. “It’s fine,” he muttered while chewing.

Sam only looked at him, regret and amusement hiding in the corners of his mouth.

Nate swallowed. “Don’t flatter yourself too much.”

Sam’s smile grew. “Alright. And I guess you needed a therapist because you were so fine with me dying?”

Nate groaned. “I really shouldn’t have told you that.”

“No, I’m sorry.” Sam shook his head, serious again. Nate instantly missed the smile. “I’m not making fun of you, I was just trying to lighten the mood. I can’t–can’t imagine what it was like for you.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Sam’s lips curled. “Yeah, well, at least I knew you weren’t dead.”

“Really?” Nate looked down at his plate. All of a sudden, he wasn’t all that hungry anymore. “I mean, you never thought that maybe I’d gotten myself killed on a treasure hunt without you there to look out for me?”

Sam seemed to consider that. “No.”

“Why?”

“You never needed me, Nathan. I looked out for you because I was responsible for you and because I wanted to. I _needed_ to. But you didn’t need me.”

He sounded almost sad saying it and Nate could only shake his head rapidly. “That’s–you’re wrong. I’ve always needed you. Always, Sam.”

There was a short silence between them and it almost made Nate shift on his chair with nervousness. Before it could become awkward, Sam said, “Even now?”

“You’re an idiot if you don’t know that,” Nate returned and Sam laughed. It was filled with mirth and relief and Nate grinned along with him. He picked his sandwich back up.

After they had finished eating, Sam convinced Nate after all to walk through the city for a while and look at the people and the architecture and enjoy the sun, which they wouldn’t get a lot of in Scotland, regardless of whether Sully found the weather to be nice this time of year. Nate still wasn’t convinced that that statement hadn’t been sarcasm.

In turn, Nate urged Sam to at least buy some hats and sunglasses first, because “sure, Nathan, that’s not conspicuous at all.” Nate elbowed him in the side, enjoying the little pained grunt that came from his brother.

It felt almost normal, natural, as if they hadn’t been separated for more than a decade, as if they had always been this comfortable around each other. Nate’s chest ached.

Maybe something showed on his face because Sam asked him, “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Nate hurried to say but it sounded so fake to his own ears that he tacked on, “Just thinking about how happy I am that we get to do this. Working together, I mean. Just …. being here.”

He wasn’t entirely sure he was making sense but feelings were so goddamn hard to put into words and from the way Sam bumped his shoulder, he understood.

The day transgressed into the early evening with neither of them noticing. The sun still stood fairly high in the sky but restaurants and cafés were closing around them. Nate had relaxed when no one had watched or followed them all afternoon and now he wasn’t walking as stiffly anymore, strolling down the cobblestone streets next to his brother.

“You up for a beer?” Sam asked him, “I’m sure we can find something like a bar around here.”

He was scanning the buildings along the street before Nate had even agreed so Nate said nothing, just fell into step with Sam when he spotted something that looked like a small pub that was still open with a crowd of people inside. They managed to order a beer each despite the barkeeper’s limited understanding of English. Both Nate and Sam knew Spanish well enough but Italian wasn’t close enough to really strike up a conversation but they made do.


	4. Chapter 4

_I’ve got no need for open roads,  
__‘Cause all I own fits on my back.  
_ – Radical Face, _Ghost Towns_

“So,” Sam began, leaning back against the bar while Nate climbed onto one of the stools, “What’s our plan from here on out?”

“Don’t really have one,” Nate admitted, “We see if we can find Avery’s grave. Then I guess, it’ll be a surprise.”

“You think we’ll find something?”

“I think it won’t be as easy as we’d like it to be.”

Sam gave him a wry smirk. “When is it ever?”

“How do you feel?” Nate found himself asking, veering off-topic because the question has been burning inside of him for days.

Sam raised his eyebrows at him, his glass half-way to his mouth. “What do you mean?” He took a swig that left his mouth shiny with liquid.

Nate fidgeted on the bar stool, looking at his knees. “I mean, fifteen years in prison couldn’t have been a walk in the park. It must be difficult to … work through all of that while at the same time trying to get used to normal life on the outside again.”

Both of them had been jailed at one time or another in their life but never for longer than a few months at most, and always for fairly banal things – usually theft. Never for murder in Panama with bribable guards that were a little too eager to let their fists speak for themselves. Nate hadn’t been able to see any other scars than the healed bullet wounds on Sam but that didn’t mean there weren’t any, especially those he couldn’t see.

“Yeah,” Sam allowed, downing half his beer, licking his lips, “I mean, sure, it wasn’t exactly a party but … it’s over, Nathan. I’m trying not to dwell on it, so … if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah, sure,” Nate hurried to say. He still had so many questions, so many worries but Sam had given him more today than Nate had hoped he would, and it was time to cut him some slack.

“I have to say,” he said, steering the conversation into safer territories, “I’m surprised you came straight to me.”

Sam threw him a half-smile, picking at some lint on his jeans. It could be the dim light and Nate’s imagination but his cheeks looked slightly flushed.

He said, “Where else would I go?”

“I just mean,” Nate gestured between them, “you didn’t even try to find, I don’t know, a woman, spend some time with her?”

“Why would I do that?”

Nate snorted. “Fifteen years in prison? Ring a bell?”

Sam laughed awkwardly and Nate briefly wondered if there was more to his question that that had mostly been to lighten the mood. He rubbed his thumb along the rim of his glass and Nate’s gaze was irrevocably drawn to it.

“No, I didn’t,” Sam said, “I can think about sex later when I got my freedom back from Alcazar.” He coughed slightly, rubbing his mouth.

“Never thought I’d see the day where you turn down sex,” Nate joked but it fell flat somehow. He couldn’t really say he knew Sam at all anymore after such a long time.

“Not turning it down,” Sam corrected, “Just not going out looking for it.”

“Alright,” Nate allowed and flagged down the bartender to gesture for a refill for the both of them as Sam chugged the last bit of his beer down.

A little while later, Nate excused himself to the bathroom to relieve himself. It was just his luck that there was a line. When he eventually returned, his brother had vanished from the counter and the beers with him.

The bar had filled up more since they had walked in an hour ago and it took Nate a moment to locate Sam by one of the standing tables. He had his elbows resting upon it, talking to a lanky brunette in a midi dress. They were conversing in Spanish and the women laughed at something Sam said before both turned their heads when Nate approached them.

He raised an eyebrow at Sam as to say ‘Who’s this?’ Sam slid him his beer. “While you were gone, Clara came up to talk to me. She’s from Madrid.”

“Seeing the sights,” Clara offered, her voice accented and melodious. Suddenly Nate found himself wishing he had learnt to speak Spanish as well as Sam. His brother had always been the one to pick languages up more quickly and frankly, Nate was out of practice to boot.

“Okay,” he said because he didn’t know what else to say. Sam snorted, drawing Nate’s attention. He narrowed his eyes at his brother. Maybe Sam had taken his question about chatting up a women for sex as an actual suggestion. Not that Nate could fault him – Clara was beautiful with her symmetric features, the narrow nose and the full lips, her thick hair hanging long over shoulders that were bare save for the small straps of her dress.

“I’m Nate,” he offered, opting for the nickname nearly everyone knew him by instead of his full name. For some reason, that had always been reserved for his brother.

She nodded at him, smiling, tilting her head to the side. She was looking at him with open interest despite the fact that she had her hand lying barely half an inch from Sam’s and Nate thought he had seen her caress his brother’s fingers when he had approached the table.

Nate reached for his beer glass. “Would you like something to drink?” he asked the woman, mainly to be polite.

“Already ordered,” Sam said and Nate clicked his tongue. He was suddenly becoming impatient and uncomfortable. He had counted on him and Sam drinking their beers in peace before returning to the hotel to go to sleep early – like the pair of old dudes they were – to head out around 7am.

A beautiful woman – one his brother was clearly interested in – had not been on the agenda.

“Sam told me you two go on adventures,” she said with a smile, her attention fully on Nate now.

He nearly laughed, shot Sam a sideward glance, catching his brother’s grin. “He likes to brag.”

Her smile turned sly. “So you’re not currently looking for a long-lost, very secret treasure?” Her accent made her drag the words, making them sound almost sensual.

Nate shifted, leaning forward against the table. His arms brushed Sam’s. “I mean, sure, of course, that part’s true,” he said, putting enough weight in his words to make them sound like a lie, so she could take them however which way she liked.

He kicked Sam’s shin under the table, asking ‘What the hell, bro?’ without as many words. Sam didn’t respond other than to learn harder into Nate’s side.

“I told Clara she could hang out with us at the hotel if she wanted to.” It sounded so casual that the meaning initially went over Nate’s head.

He turned to face Sam but Sam was looking at Clara, who was smiling back at him.

Nate cleared his throat. “Sure.” He wasn’t entirely positive he knew what was going on. Was Sam subtly asking him to stay away so he could spend time with Clara in their hotel room?

If so, Nate was inclined to tell him to fuck off because he wasn’t about to stroll around the nightly streets alone in a city he didn’t know, where people might still be looking for them. Aside from that, the thought of Sam and Clara together while Nate would be exiled turned his stomach sour and nearly made hot bile shoot up the back of his throat.

The other option, one that he only now allowed himself to consider, was that Sam was talking about the three of them returning to the hotel room together – he had said ‘with _us_ ’ after all – and Nate couldn’t even spin that scenario any further because his palms started to sweat at the mere idea of it.

Sam elbowed him gently. Their shoulders were still pressed together. “Hm?”

“You with us?” Sam asked. Nate’s gaze fixed on Clara who was looking between them, bemused but with a smile and a glint in her eyes.

“Yeah, sure,” Nate hurried to say, putting a hand on his arm to assure him that he was okay, just lost in thought, but then Sam said, “Alright, let’s go then,” and Nate felt lost again.

What had he just agreed to?

Clara’s manicured fingers snaked around his wrist and he automatically offered her his arm in an exaggerated gentleman-y gesture, making her laugh. It sounded high and pearly, making her think of Elena. What the hell was he doing?

He had only had two beers but he could definitely feel them as they left the bar and cool air greeted them on the outside.

“So,” Nate asked Clara, “do you do this kind of thing a lot? Allowing two strangers to lead you back to their hotel room, I mean,” completely putting his foot in his mouth.

He winced while Sam laughed and Nate swatted at him behind Clara’s back, who was sandwiched between them.

Thankfully, she seemed far from offended. “No, in fact, but Sam was very persuasive.” Sam’s name sounded extremely suggestive in her mouth and Nate would like to know what Sam had told her in the brief window of time that Nate had been absent.

For a moment he wondered whether she was a hooker but then he waved that thought away.

“Excuse my little brother,” Sam said with audible mirth, “He still hasn’t learned how to talk to women.”

Nate nearly stopped dead. He was utterly taken aback by the ease with which Sam mentioned their relation to a women who, judging from the glances she was throwing the both of them, was definitely interested in more than just talking.

She didn’t even blink an eye, so maybe Sam had already told her that particular tidbit. What the purpose of that would have been, Nate wasn’t entirely sure. Then she turned her eyes on him and there was something mischievous there. Perhaps the fact that they were brothers made them even more interesting to her. Nate swallowed.

In front of their room, he nearly yelped when Sam slid his hand into the back pocket of Nate’s jeans to retrieve the keycard that Nate had snatched when they had left earlier. He managed to suppress the noise of surprise but he couldn’t help but flinch a little at the unexpected contact.

Clara’s fingers traveled up his arm to his shoulder as the three of them made their way through the door, making Nate shiver with her gentle touch.

She leaned in to speak into his ear, the words moving up and down with her accent. “You know, I believed him when he said you were hot but _wow_ , you’re actually delicious.”

His eyes flickered to her slitted ones, mouth falling open. “He–uh–what?”

She chuckled, curling her slender fingers around the back of his neck. He was still stuck on her words even as he eyed her full mouth. How did he even get here?

Sam materialized next to them, balancing three whiskey tumblers. On autopilot, Nate took two of them from him and extended one to Clara. She tilted it in their direction. “To us,” she said, smiling, waiting for Nate and Sam to repeat the sentiment, before all three of them gulped down the harsh liquid.

It burned Nate’s throat and settled warm in his stomach. Clara, lips shiny with whiskey, blinked up at Sam before leaning in for a kiss. Nate could see Sam’s eyebrows rise with the suddenness of it but he quickly went with the program and tangled his fingers in her hair.

So, apparently, they were doing this.

It was strange, watching Sam kiss someone. They used to talk about women, about dates and relationships, even sexual fantasies, a lot when they were younger. Nate had always been too curious for his own good and had asked Sam even the most awkward of questions. Practically nothing had been off limits, not between them.

But Nate had never actually _seen_ Sam with anyone. He had known about Crystal, way back when, but they hadn’t been big on PDA. Nate had always thought that Sam had kept that part of his life away from Nate for a reason.

This was entirely different. They were both grown men now, experienced but at the same time they didn’t know each other anymore, not like that. Nate didn’t know what Sam was into, what he liked – although apparently it was leggy Spanish brunettes – and it hadn’t exactly been a topic that had come up in the past few days. They had had other things to think about.

But now Nate found himself wondering as he watched Sam with Clara. She seemed happy enough to take the lead and Nate didn’t know why it surprised him that Sam let her, allowed her to kiss him, to grab his hair and his hip while his own hands on her shoulders were rather hesitant. For some reason, Nate had always imagined his brother as the guy in charge, no matter the circumstances.

This newfound knowledge automatically conjured up thoughts that weren’t exactly safe to think about. It made him want to push, test the boundaries of whatever this was right there. He wondered what it would be like, to be in Clara’s place, holding his brother close to him while they explored each other’s mouths with care. He wondered how warm Sam’s body would feel against his own and suddenly he was transported back to this morning, how Sam hadn’t made a move to extricate himself from Nate when Nate had essentially wrapped himself around him in his sleep-hazy state.

Clara pulled back a little to ruck up Sam’s wrinkled dress shirt and he helped by flicking open the buttons and shrugging it off. She made an appreciative humming noise, then playfully pushed him away, grabbing the front of Nate’s shirt and tugging him in instead.

Her mouth descended on Nate’s and Nate could hear Sam laugh in the background and when he opened his lips against hers he was brutally aware of the fact that what he could taste on her tongue wasn’t just her taste but also his brother’s. He was vaguely aware of how that shouldn’t made him grab her arms and pull her closer to him, kissing her harder to muffle the groan that escaped him. There was another sound from Sam, a soft gasp, and Nate kept his eyes shut because he had no idea what he would do if he looked at his brother right now.

Clara hummed against his mouth, her fingertip tracing the shell of his ear and down his neck, making him shiver. She smelled citrusy and tasted like whiskey with a deeper, darker undertone, and Nate briefly took her lower lip between his teeth before letting her mouth go.

“Damn _,_ ” she said quietly when she stepped back, grinning at him openly. Then she turned her head to look over her shoulder at Sam, reaching out for him.

For a moment Nate caught Sam’s gaze and somehow there seemed to be the expectation in the air that now the two of them would kiss and Nate’s pulse staggered. Then, Sam looked away and took Clara’s hand and the moment was over. Nate almost felt bereft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I sorry for the cliffhanger? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	5. Chapter 5

_Days don’t feel different from the nights with no goals in mind.  
_ – Radical Face, _Holy Branches_

Clara steered Sam toward the bed and he went willingly, hooded gaze focused on her, letting himself fall backward when his knees hit the edge of the mattress. It made Nate’s fingers itch with the desire to undress him further.

To speed things up, Nate got rid of his own shirt and slotted himself behind Clara, tugging at the zipper of her dress. She swung her hair aside to give him free access. Over her shoulders, Nate watched Sam open his own pants, and slowly shimmy them down over his hips. It drew his attention more than Clara’s naked back did and he was momentarily glad that Clara couldn’t see him. Sam, however, was staring right at him while he kicked off his pants and then reached for Clara, pulling her down on top of him once Nate had worked the zipper open and the straps of the dress off her shoulders.

She made a pleased sound in the back of her throat, straddling Sam, her bony knees digging into the mattress on either side of his hips. She was slim, looked almost tiny on top of Sam’s muscular body, her skin darker than both of theirs, and Nate was momentarily glad that she looked nothing like Elena.

She beckoned him closer, then reached back to open his pants without looking and that was definitely a nice party trick. He stroked her shoulders and bent forward, kissing the nape of her neck, hooking his fingers under the clasp of her bra to tease.

His brother’s fingers met his as Sam caressed Clara’s sides and Nate unhooked her bra, smoothing it off her shoulders. He gently pushed her forward, kissing the top of her spine and sliding his mouth lower. Sam’s hands slid into her hair, holding on while they kissed again.

It quickly became too uncomfortable to stand by the bed and bend forward, bracing himself on the mattress, so Nate shucked his pants and slid up behind Clara without thinking about it. His naked chest pressed against her back, his calves slid together with Sam’s on the bed and somehow he was much more aware of that contact than he was of Clara’s round, panty-clad ass against his groin.

He slid his arms around her, his wrists bumping against Sam’s stomach. Nate nearly jumped when he felt his brother’s hand close around his biceps for a moment, tugging him down farther. Nate didn’t dare lift his head above Clara’s shoulders to look at Sam.

He cupped a hand around Clara’s neck, making her turn her head over her shoulder for a kiss that was a slightly awkward due to the angle but amazing nonetheless.

“Damn,” Clara said when she and Nate came up for air again, “You two are perfect.”

Nate heard his brother laugh, then felt Sam’s fingers fleetingly brush his where they were still curved around Clara’s throat, followed by his mouth and this time Nate really did jump. Sam kissed down Clara’s neck right next to Nate’s fingers, catching them now and again with his lips, and it was unlikely to be accidental. Nate exhaled into Clara’s neck.

While Sam was kissing her neck, chest and breasts, making her hum with appreciation, Nate scooted back a bit so he could get a hand between himself and her ass. He tried to ignore the way the back of his hand fit against the inside of Sam’s thigh, right where his underwear started. Nate was briefly tempted to slip his fingers under the fabric and tease the sensitive skin there.

Instead, he pressed his fingers flat against the seat of Clara’s panties, rubbing her through the thin cotton. She made a little “oh” sound and pressed back against him, squirming her pelvis down for more stimulation and he snuck two fingers beneath the fabric and sank them into her wet opening to the second knuckle.

There wasn’t much room for him to move and she kept grinding down onto his hand, pressing it shamelessly against Sam’s clothed cock underneath her. Nate could feel exactly how hard his brother already was and if he listened closely he could hear a hitch in Sam’s breath every time Clara bore down.

She moaned prettily as Nate slid his fingers deeper and began thrusting them in and out of her, working with the little space he had.

“Guys?” she panted, “I really need one of you to fuck me now.”

Nate caught Sam’s grin over her shoulder. “Well then, how about you get my wallet for me, little brother?”

Nate winced, staring at him, but Clara only turned his head toward him to shoot him a grin that matched Sam’s.

With a nervous chuckle, Nate pushed up from the bed and grabbed his brother’s jacket, extracting the brown leather wallet from the right side pocket. He didn’t even have to think about where it would be.

Sam caught it, flipped through it for a condom packet, then threw it to the floor. Meanwhile, Clara had gotten rid of her own underwear and was currently working on Sam’s. It was impossible for Nate not to look and weirdly enough, he barely felt any shame about his inability to avert his eyes. His gaze flickered up to Sam’s face and his brother was looking at him with a strangely mixed expression and one of those small smiles that were all reserved for Nate.

Nate swallowed, making himself move toward the bed. He knelt beside them, Clara across Sam’s hips again and rocking against him while he opened the condom packet with his teeth. Clara took to from him with a flashy smile and then her fingers wrapped around Sam’s dick and she rolled the condom on.

Nate’s attention was caught by the way Sam closed his eyes and bit his lip, then gasped and grabbed Clara’s hips as she lifted up and sank down on him, taking him easily.

Nate had never had sex with a man and he found himself wondering, for the first time, what it was like to take someone else’s cock into your body like that. Clara’s head was thrown back, the long line of her throat on display and her fingers clutched Sam’s against her hipbones as she rode him slowly, clearly enjoying every second of it.

Nate couldn’t stop watching the way they moved together, eyes caught by the spot where they were joined, where Sam’s erection disappeared into her body over and over, and he nearly missed her beckoning him closer. He scooted up until his knees were digging into his brother’s side and leaned forward, catching her mouth in a kiss. He steadied her around the waist, helping her movements, and with the way they were all pressed so close together, Nate’s own dick soon demanded attention.

He put his own need on the back burner for now in favor of watching the two people next to him and kissing down Clara’s neck, dragging his teeth over her collarbone until she shivered, and then lower. He stroked a hand down her stomach until his fingers found her clit and she bucked up into him, clenching and shuddering around Sam inside her. The sudden moan from his brother surprised Nate because so far Sam had been rather quiet.

Nate turned his head, eyes following Sam’s tongue as it flicked out to wet his own lips. Drops of sweat had formed on his forehead and his pupils were blown wide-black, and Nate had the sudden urge to kiss him. Instead, he bent his head to take one of Clara’s nipple into his mouth, between his teeth, and she gave a whimpery moan, her hand coming up to curl in his short hair.

He teased her with slow, torturous circles of his fingers, rubbing his thumb down to there Sam was inside her and it felt only too natural to slide it into her alongside, making both her and Sam moan. Clara held onto his shoulders as Nate kissed lower, brushing his lips across her quivering stomach, gently biting the beginning of her thighs until she was whining for him to move faster, do _something_ , and he withdrew his thumb from her wet hole, placed it over her clit, and her nails bit into Nate’s shoulders as she came, her thigh noticeably quivering against his side.

Sam moaned with her, breathed, “Nathan,” and it shook through Nate, giving him the last bit of courage he needed to replace his thumb with his mouth, flicking his tongue against Clara’s pleasure point. She whimpered, grabbing his hair again.

Then Nate realized that it wasn’t actually her hand but _Sam’s_ that had knotted in his hair, blunt nails scratching against his scalp, and he could hear his brother’s fast breathing, could feel the slight tremble in his fingers. Acting on impulse, Nate pressed his tongue flat against where Clara was impaled on Sam’s cock, sunken all the way down to the root, riding out her orgasm with tiny rocking motions, and Nate licked around the base of his brother’s cock, just to hear him moan again, to feel those fingers clench in his hair.

Sam didn’t disappoint. His hips thrust up into Clara once, who gave a shuddery moan, moving with him, and he clutched at the back of Nate’s head, holding him right where he was as if Nate had any intention of pulling away. He position wasn’t the most ideal, he had to curve his spine somewhat unnaturally to get at Clara while sitting beside her. To get better access he would have to straddle Sam’s chest and that might be pushing it too far.

He was so preoccupied with Clara squirming against him that he almost missed his brother’s hand on his thigh, sliding around to his hip. He turned his head as much as he could, looking at Sam, who met him with wild eyes and red-bitten lips.

“Come here,” he said, stroking his hand around to the inside of Nate’s thigh and tugging lightly. Nate blinked at him, both apprehension and anticipation coiling hot in his stomach. He sat up, wiggled out of his briefs, then let himself be guided by Sam, settling somewhat hesitantly on top of him, facing Clara. Clara immediately bent forward, grabbed his face and kissed him. He let her lick into his mouth, shivering when Sam’s hands stroked up his thighs, sliding between them.

He made a _very_ undignified sound when he was suddenly dragged backward by Sam’s arms, out of the kiss, and he had to steady himself on his brother’s stomach.

He couldn’t muffle the embarrassingly load moan when he felt Sam mouthing first at his balls, then at the base of his painfully hard dick, and he shivered, gasped, “ _Jesus_ , Sam.”

Sam hummed, vibrations sending spikes of pleasure through Nate’s groin, and said, “Get back to work.”

Clara gave a breathless, pearly laugh and carded her fingers through Nate’s hair. He reached out for her, pulling her in for a quick kiss, then sank low again, returning to torturing her with his tongue and lips and she gasped beautifully, her hands fluttering across his shoulders.

The new position gave Sam more access and Nate nearly cried out when his brother’s mouth closed over the tip of his cock and he instantly rocked down to get more of that wet heat, his neglected erection screaming for release. Sam’s grip was unyielding, he was going at his pace and there was nothing Nate could do about it. His legs were trembling where they bracketed Sam’s head.

He worked two fingers into Clara in addition to what she was already taking and crooked them right against her sweet spot, swirling his tongue around her clit, teasing the little nub with his lips and, very gently, with his teeth, sucking softly, until she came again with a yell, shuddering with overstimulation.

She moaned, shivered and ground down, her pussy clenching around both Sam’s cock and Nate’s fingers that kept rubbing her insides until she whimpered and Nate took pity on her, withdrawing until he could kiss her abdomen.

Sam’s fingers had dug into Nate’s thighs during Clara’s orgasm and her spasms around him, and it wasn’t long until Nate could feel him tense up beneath him, bucking his hips up into Clara a couple more times, nearly throwing her off balance in her hazy state, and moaned around Nate’s cock when he came.

Nate’s forehead sunk to Sam’s stomach, he was holding onto his brother’s sides, doing his best not to collapse right then and there because his legs were so unsteady. He breathed in his brother’s scent, sweat and salt, and mouthed at his abdominals on instinct, sucking a mark next to his navel just to see it bloom pink against the tan skin.

He moaned when Sam took him deeper into his mouth and it was already difficult to hold on but when Sam swallowed around him, teasing him with his tongue that tiny bit more, he gave in and finally came, too, shaking and shuddering on top of his brother, who smoothed his palms over Nate’s flanks, stroking his sides though climax.

The three of them collapsed in an uncoordinated heap, Nate and Clara dropping to either side of Sam, caging him between them, and Nate was hard-pressed to hold his breath, apprehensive of what post-coital clarity would bring.

After a few seconds of silence, Sam suddenly chuckled, a low and happy sound coming from the base of his throat, and Nate couldn’t help himself. He turned his grin to the ceiling.


	6. Chapter 6

_There’s only so much good a man can take,  
_ _When he ain’t so good himself.  
_ – Radical Face, _Reminders_

Nate came back around to Clara puttering around the room and gathering her clothes. Her dress was still half unzipped and he was about to offer his help when Sam came out of the bathroom, dressed only in boxer briefs. Nate rolled onto his side, sheets sliding off his hip, as he watched the two of them.

Clara noticed him awake and shot him an honest and open smile. Then she turned back to Sam and said something to him that Nate didn’t catch before Sam nodded, zipped up her dress and walked her to the door. She was still barefoot, her heeled sandals dangling from her fingers.

Nate saw Sam grab some cash from his jacket by the door and then he kissed Clara goodbye at the door.

“She didn’t wanna stay?” Nate heard himself ask, voice rough from sleep. “How long was I out?”

Sam skipped straight to his second question. “Half an hour or so.” He grabbed his jeans and put them on without bothering to button them and stepped out onto the balcony on bare feet and with a pack of cigarettes.

Nate sighed, letting his head fall back down against the mattress. He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing sleep would just take him back. However he spun and turned it, he had just slept with a women he barely knew – which wasn’t that big of a deal – while he had also sucked off his big brother – which was a _very_ big deal. Nate couldn’t even begin to make sense of it.

He kicked the blanket off and grabbed his underwear from the floor. He needed a shower but for now, he only washed up a little in the bathroom, splashing water into his face and staring at himself in the mirror. However, his mirror self didn’t have any answers for him, either.

Sam was still on the balcony when Nate came out of the bathroom but he had finished smoking, squashing the stub against the banister. He hadn’t put on a shirt and the line of his naked back, the muscular shoulders, and especially the speckled scars on his lower back where the bullets had gone right through drew Nate’s attention.

He grabbed the bottle of whiskey off the table and followed Sam onto the balcony.

“What did she say to you?” he asked, stepping up next to his brother but keeping his distance, “Why did you pay her?”

He remembered his initial suspicion that she was a hooker but Sam only laughed. “I gave her money for a cab back to her hotel, _idiota._ ”

“Oh, look at you going native.”

Sam shook his head. If Nate didn’t know any better he’d say he looked fond.

“So,” Nate said, eyeing the uncapped bottle of whiskey he was carrying, “That happened.”

Next to him, Sam gave a small snort and lit another cigarette. Nate really hated those things. He grabbed for it before his brother could put it to his lips and extinguished it.

“Hey!”

“I swear,” Nate said through clenched teeth, “If I spent fifteen years thinking you were dead only to have you actually die on me from something as monumentally stupid as lung cancer, I–” He didn’t finish the sentence because to be honest, he didn’t know what he would do, but he figured he conveyed the sentiment.

Sam stared at him but Nate turned away and took a swig from the whiskey bottle. He wasn’t sure why he was drinking the stuff, he didn’t even particularly like it.

“Nathan, slow down,” Sam warned but Nate flipped him off, taking another gulp. The heat of it briefly took his breath away and he stopped, wiping his mouth.

“Nathan–” Sam started again but whatever he had been about to say, it was lost when Nate grabbed him by the neck and pulled him in, smashing their mouths together without much coordination. Sam made a surprised noise but Nate curled his fingers into his brother’s messy hair and kept him right there against him.

Sam tasted like smoke and whiskey, although that was probably just the taster lingering in Nate’s own mouth, but when Nate parted his lips, Sam melted against him, wrapping one arm around Nate’s shoulders and suddenly the taste was all his. Foreign and yet so familiar and Nate’s head swam. Maybe the alcohol hadn’t been the best idea but without it he probably wouldn’t be here right now, practically naked, pressed against his brother in the middle of the night on a hotel balcony. It was all a little surreal, as if they existed in a bubble outside the normal universe.

Nate loosened his grip on Sam’s hair, letting him pull back a little. Their noses were still touching.

“You know,” Sam said quietly, eyes sparkling in the lack of space between them, “You didn’t have to chug that whiskey to find the courage to kiss me. You could’a just asked.”

Nate didn’t know what to say to that. The entire day had been a blur and maybe it was the lingering alcohol but he couldn’t say how they had ended up here. Somewhere, they had taken a turn that they couldn’t seem to find their way back from.

He licked his lips, nervousness fluttering in his belly. “Why?” he asked.

“What why?”

“Just–Why us? Why _me_? Why now? Just why.”

Sam chuckled, a full sound coming from the back of his throat, washing over Nate in a shiver. But maybe that was the chilly midnight air on his bare skin.

“I’m not sure where to begin with that, Nathan.” Sam sighed and for the fraction of a moment Nate panicked because he thought Sam was pulling away from him.

Though all he did was remove his arm around Nate’s shoulders to put both his arms around Nate’s waist, holding him. Nate couldn’t help himself, his eyes fluttered closed for a moment. He allowed himself to sway into Sam’s embrace, drawn in by his warmth and his smell that had always meant home and safety.

“Try me,” he pushed gently, brushing his lips over Sam’s jaw before resting his head on his brother’s shoulder. Maybe it would make it easier for Sam to talk if he didn’t have to look Nate in the eye.

He heard Sam blew out the breath, felt the hair on the side of his head ruffle. “I don’t even know, I just–“ He paused, then began again, “Prison gave me a lot of time to think. There wasn’t really anything to do besides read and jerk off.”

The corner of his mouth pulled up but Nate couldn’t help it, he flinched at the mention of Sam’s incarceration. He forced a small grin, joked to ease the tension in his own shoulders, “So, what, you thought about me during jerk-off session?”

Sam didn’t laugh, wasn’t even smiling. Nate swallowed.

“I think the moment that kind of drove it home for me,” Sam continued, briefly squeezing Nate’s waist, “was when Alcazar asked me what I’d do if I got out.”

“What did you say?”

“Shush.” Sam nudged him. “Don’t interrupt.”

Nate barked a laugh, feeling somewhat lighter, and bumped Sam back.

Sam’s warm palm settled heavy on the small of his back. “I said that I’d take a shower and I’d find a warm body to sleep next to and then I’d try to find you.”

When he didn’t immediately continue, Nate prompted, “And?”

“What did I just say?”

“I didn’t interrupt. You need to talk faster.”

He felt Sam’s snort more than he heard it. The hand on his back traveled up his spine, fingers tracing each vertebra, leaving behind goosebumps. “I realized,” Sam said, “that I didn’t care that much about a warm body in my bed as I did about finding you. And then I realized I kinda don’t care about that warm body in my bed _at all_ unless it’s yours.”

Nate was acutely aware of Sam’s fingers curling around the back of his neck. He never wanted his brother to stop touching him. “You know,” he said, “somehow you managed to make that sound both crude and romantic at the same time.”

Sam blew out a breath, silent laughter vibrating in his chest. “It’s a skill.” He pulled back a little, taking Nate’s face in his hands. “Are you okay?”

Nate automatically closed his eyes. The whiskey was still working through him, making him sleepy and immune against the cool night air. He hummed, nodded. “Think so. Just–I’m gonna need some time to work through this.”

“Okay,” Sam said. Then, he stayed quiet long enough for Nate to blink his eyes back open.

His brother was looking at him with a guarded expression. Nate couldn’t tell whether he was disappointed. He lifted his hands to curl his fingers around Sam’s biceps, tugging him back in, slotting their mouths together in another kiss, softer this time. A gentle exploration of mouths, the tips of Sam’s fingers brushing over Nate’s cheekbone.

A hand cupped Nate’s chin and Sam withdrew a little too abruptly. “If you want time–space–to think about things … we’d better stop this here because I–” He didn’t finish the sentence but he didn’t need to.

Nate gently shook his head. “I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t mean I don’t want this.” He turned his head to the side to catch Sam’s thumb between his lips, grazing his teeth across the pad of it. He reveled in Sam’s startled gasp, seizing the moment of Sam’s surprise to pull his brother back in and keep him there this time, with his arms around Sam’s shoulders. It was still strange to have to look up at someone he was kissing but he thought he could easily get used to it.

“Nathan,” Sam started but Nate cut him off with a shake of his head and another short kiss.

“I promise,” he said, “I’m good. I’m not going to freak out on you in the morning.” He brushed his lips across his brothers, then trailed them down over his chin, enjoying the way Sam’s breathing sped up at the touches.

“I can’t say I’m not confused.” Understatement. “But right now, I just … want.” He blinked up at Sam, trying to look at his eyes despite their closeness. “You okay with that?”

In lieu of an answer Sam reached down to take the bottle of whiskey from him, then grabbed his elbow and tugged him along back into the room, stuffy air and the lingering smell of sex greeting them. Nate couldn’t help but blush when Sam put the bottle back on the table, where it wobbled precariously for a moment before coming to a rest, and pulled Nate back into his arms, dipping down for a kiss. The height difference between them wasn’t actually that significant but Nate had never been as aware of it as he was right now. His hands slid down to Sam’s abdomen, fingers trailing along the waistband of his jeans that were sitting open and dangerously below his hipbones.

“Bed?” he asked and Sam gave an answering hum against his mouth lips, fingers curling around Nate’s shoulders.

It had barely been an hour since his last orgasm but Nate was undeniably growing hard again. He let Sam steer him toward the bed, pulling him down on top of himself. His legs parted automatically to allow Sam to slide between them once they had both kicked the last of their clothes off.

Nate’s fingers found their way back into his brother’s thick strands of hair, tugging a little just to tease and hear Sam gasp quietly into his mouth.

“You sure about this?” he asked, trailing his mouth down the column of Nate’s throat.

Nate dropped his head back against the mattress, shivering. “As sure as I can be.” The he realized that might be taken the wrong way. “Yes, Sammy, I’m sure.”

The childhood nickname made Sam raise his head to look at Nate. His gaze was too open, eyes too honest, and Nate found himself having to look away. He brushed his thumb against his brother’s temple. “Come on,” he urged, “Show me what you got.”

Sam snorted, burying his face against Nate’s neck, the tips of his hair tickling Nate’s skin. He felt Sam’s hands slide behind his back, pressing up gently until Nate ached into him, presenting his naked chest for Sam to kiss and nip and lick, flicking his clever tongue out against Nate’s nipples.

“Okay, that’s– _ah_.” Nate grabbed a fistful of Sam’s hair. “Keep doing that.”

Sam’s laughter vibrated straight through him, filling him with warmth and making heat shoot down to his groin. He shifted his legs on either side of his brother’s torso, his cock lying hard and aching between them, getting the occasional friction from Sam rubbing against him.

“So, Clara,” Nate insisted, “Was that something you planned or– _shit._ ” His hips bucked up on their own accord when Sam’s mouth let up from his chest and stomach and he licked a quick swipe right up the underside of Nate’s cock.

“Are you just gonna talk the rest of the night or are you going to enjoy yourself?”

“I am– _mh_ –I am enjoying myself.” Nate’s fingers curled in the sheets when his brother rubbed his stubbly cheek against the sensitive beginning of his thigh. “I can multi-tasking.”

Sam groaned but it sort of turned into a chuckle there at the end. “You’re a menace.”

He sat up between Nate’s legs and Nate was about to complain about losing the contact but then Sam hooked one arm underneath Nate’s knee and easily pulled him up until his hips essentially rested in Sam’s lap, thighs spread against Sam’s sides, and Nate flushed hot. He reached down to curl a hand behind Sam’s leg to tug him closer, press their cocks together between them, and Sam leaned forward, wetting his hand with his tongue and wrapping it around the both of them with a sure grip.

Nate moaned at the hot silky feeling of his brother’s erect flesh pressing against his and the sensation of a calloused, capable hand on his dick. He trembled, wrapping his arms around Sam’s shoulders to bring him in for another kiss. It was rougher than the previous ones, fueled by need and sloppy with their movements, but just as glorious and Nate thought that if he wasn’t so desperate to come, he would be content with simply making out with Sam all day long.

He whimpered at the mostly dry friction, still too sensitive from the last orgasm earlier. “Wait, wait– _oh God_.” He sucked in a breath when they parted, his heart pounding in his chest. “Think we need–need some lube.”

Sam made a low-humming sound, mouth pressed to the underside of Nate’s jaw. Cool air hit Nate’s damp skin when he pulled back and Nate involuntarily shivered. He pushed some sweat-sticky hair up and away from his forehead. He heard Sam rummage around in his suitcase and come back up with a small bottle of tube.

“Oh, travel size? Neat,” Nate teased him and it was only partially to mask his lingering nervousness.

Sam shot him a wide grin. “Never hurts to be prepared.”

“I bet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, you hate me. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to split this chapter, so I got left with a cliffhanger. Again. I SWEAR I will stop doing this to you. Eventually. Maybe.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where I will deviate more obviously from canon events.

_You would kill for me and knew that I’d do the same,  
_ _And it cut me sharp, hearing you’d gone away.  
_ – Radical Face, _Always Gold_

Sam’s knees dipped the mattress and Nate lifted himself to his elbows. His brother pushed him back down as he straddled him easily, pressing his groin against Nate’s hips, making both of them moan in unison. Sam had one hand braced against Nate’s chest, keeping him down against the bed, and Nate’s fingers closed around his brother’s wrist instinctively, holding onto him.

The cold wetness of the lube against Nate’s overheated flesh made him hiss through his teeth but Sam’s hand stroking him quickly turned the unpleasant sensation into pleasure. Nate voiced his satisfaction with another moan, letting his eyes slip closed. Sam kept a firm grip on him but it wasn’t enough to bring him to climax.

He reached his free hand down, cupping Sam hip to urge him closer again, take both of them into his hand again and stroke them to mutual completion. But he just rocked up onto his knees, keeping himself away from Nate and Nate was about to lift his head and open his eyes to ask him if something was wrong, when Sam’s hand slid up to the very tip of his cock, holding him there. Then tight, hot heat engulfed Nate’s dick and he nearly shot off the bed.

“Sam, what the– _oh, Jesus Christ._ ”

Sam’s hands came down onto his shoulders, pressing Nate back down as his hips bucked up, shameless lack of self-control, and Nate clenched his teeth against a low groan, coming from the very back of his throat. He was writhing against the sheets as Sam sank down on him, fingers fanning out to hold Nate’s biceps down as well.

“Fucking hell.” Nate tried to gulp air into his lungs, twisting out of his brother’s grip to place his hands on Sam’s hips.

Sam’s hair was falling into his face, head hanging low, and Nate could see his chest rising and falling rapidly. He groaned quietly, then slowly slid his hands down over Nate’s ribcage to his stomach. Nate thought he could feel them tremble slightly. In slow circles, he caressed the bones under his thumbs, making Sam shudder and shift on top of him. The small movement drew a gasp from the both of them, then Sam chuckled slightly.

“You okay?” he asked with a small smile, his eyes fluttering open, and Nate could do nothing but stare.

“Me okay?” he returned, entirely too breathless. “Yeah, _fuck_ , Sam, I’m okay. More than okay.”

Sam grinned down at him, then pushed his sweaty hair back and out of his face. He did that thing with his hips again, wiggling slightly on top of Nate until Nate’s eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head, before he finally rose up onto his knees to slide back down.

Nate dug his fingers into Sam’s flanks. His brother was unimaginably tight around him and his movements were slow, almost agonizingly so, and Nate had to bite his tongue to keep from asking for more, from thrusting his hips up into Sam, demanding harder and faster without so many words.

Sam’s fingers curled against his belly. “Move, Nathan. You’re not gonna break me that easily.”

Nate kept a tight grip on his brother’s hips as he arched up, making Sam gasp and throw his head back, putting the long line of his throat on display. The inked birds moved every time he swallowed. Nate braced his feet against the mattress and drew his legs up, throwing Sam forward.

“Jesus.” Nate felt Sam’s thighs quiver against his sides. “Warn a guy.”

Nate reached into Sam’s hair, tugging him down. “C’mere.”

Sam shuddered at the shift in angle, crashing his mouth against Nate’s as Nate surged up to hold onto him. Their skin slid together somewhat slippery and Nate didn’t have much room to move under his brother but he thrust up with short little rolls of his hips, making Sam pant and moan into his mouth and, goddamn, it was probably the sexiest thing he had ever heard.

Sam was moving against him almost impatiently, licking into his mouth, hands fluttering down his arms where they held Sam’s hips, and then Nate thrust up harder and another drawn-out moan poured from Sam’s swollen lips.

“Can you– _oof_.”

Whatever Sam had been about to ask got cut off when Nate pushed himself off the bed and switched their positions, Sam’s back hitting the mattress underneath him. Nate crowded in close between his brother’s legs, pressing in deep and watching Sam bite his lip against another noise threatening to spill.

Nate bent forward, grinding his hips down. “What was that?”

Sam’s shaky fingers ghosted along Nate’s thigh. “Control freak,” he whispered hoarsely and Nate gave a breathless laugh.

Heat was throbbing low in his groin and he held still inside of Sam, his brother’s body clenching around him in an effort to get him moving again, until he was somewhat certain he wasn’t going to come right then and there. He hooked his palm behind Sam’s knee, opening him up a little more, and then withdrew to thrust back in, experimentally at first but when there was no objection coming from his brother, just a steady stream of gasps and whimpery moans, he allowed himself to put more force behind it.

Sam’s hand closed around his biceps, the other fisting in the bedsheet, and he was meeting every one of Nate’s movements, spine curving to arch up into him on every thrust, and Nate almost had to laugh at how in sync they were even here, even now. He let go of Sam’s knee, urged him to wrap both his legs around his waist so Nate could hold onto his hips as he fucked him with increasingly erratic thrusts, chasing his own orgasm.

He bent low to kiss Sam again but it was more of a sharing of breath, both of them panting too hard to actually do more than move open mouth against each other.

“Sam, I–” Nate began, breaking off in a shudder that raced through him, need and arousal a live helix around his spine. He felt Sam nod against him, “Yeah.”

Pressing Sam down into the mattress, Nate grabbed his brother’s wrists, holding them against the bed next to his head. He could feel the sinews flexing against his palms as he swallowed Sam’s moan, licking it out of his mouth with his own tongue. He rolled his hips, making sure to keep pressure on Sam’s prostate at the same time as providing some friction for his cock that was trapped between their bellies.

Sam jerked in his grip, arching up into him. “Holy shit– _please_.”

Nate shushed him gently, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then his jaw, before his mouth traveled lower, down over the bird tattoo, latching onto Sam’s collar bone to suck soft marks into the skin. Sam shook underneath him, a sound leaving his mouth that was too close to a whine, and Nate was done.

Because this was his big brother, his protector and teacher, the guy with the plan and the stupid jokes, reduced to a trembling, whimpering mess because of _Nate_ , because of what Nate was doing to him, and it was too much. He squeezed his eyes shut as he came, feeling like he blacked out for a moment or maybe like he was watching himself fucking Sam from the outside, feeling blissfully numb for all of two seconds before slamming right back into all of the overwhelming sensations. He groaned, mouth pressed into the hollow of Sam’s throat, as he kept moving through it, hard, deep thrusts that made Sam buck up into him, a hand on Sam’s dick, and Nate’s entire body was still quivering with aftershocks when Sam spilled with a muffled yell between them.

They rode it out together, Nate letting himself be pulled down against Sam’s sticky chest, resting his head against his brother’s shoulder while trying to calm his breathing. They were both in desperate need of a shower but Nate couldn’t have moved if his life had depended on it. He felt like he was drifting, in and out of a doze, until he noticed Sam’s fingers tracing random patterns on his back.

“Damn,” he said, voice rough, sounding used. “Just–damn.”

Sam chuckled beneath him, jostling Nate slightly. Then he hummed in agreement, turning his head a little to press his lips against Nate’s damp forehead. “Can you let me up?”

Nate gave a grunt of displeasure and gracelessly flopped to the side. Sam laughed, shoving at him until he could get up and off the bed. Nate nearly instinctively reached for him. Instead, he curled his hands into the sheet. He was waiting for the inevitable realization to set in that, yes, he had just had sex with his brother, and yes, it had definitely been some of the best sex he had ever had. His skin was itchy with something that his brain hadn’t caught up to yet. Maybe Sam had been right, maybe this had been a horrible mistake and he would probably, most likely, possibly freak out about it later.

He nearly shrieked when something cold and wet hit him right in the stomach and he instantly reached for it to throw it off him when he heard his brother’s laughter. “Clean up, you’re gross.”

Nate grumbled, “Look who’s talking,” but did as asked and wiped down his stomach, trying very hard not to think about the fact that it was his brother’s spunk he was cleaning up. He smacked Sam right in the shoulder with the used cloth when he was done, enjoying Sam’s little yelp and his look of disgust as he peeled it off his skin and let it drop to the floor.

Housekeeping would have fun with this.

The bed wobbled when Sam collapsed onto it next to Nate. Their naked bodies were pressed together arm to arm and hip to hip and Nate closed his eyes, for a moment simply enjoying the quiet of his brain after a good fuck.

Then Sam had to ruin it. “You alright?”

“Never better.” Nate didn’t bother opening his eyes, just rolled onto his side to throw his arm over his brother’s stomach, head resting on Sam’s shoulder. He sighed with content when Sam wiggled his arm out from underneath him to wind it around Nate’s shoulders.

It was kind of gross and not exactly ideal, lying on top of the blanket, skin sticking together uncomfortably, but Nate’s muscles were slack, his bones jelly, and every movement felt like he was wading through sirup. So he ignored the cool room air against his naked back, raising goosebumps, and pressed his nose into the hollow of Sam’s throat, breathing in the sweaty, musky scent of him. Of them.

Who knew what the morning would bring. Maybe they would both come to their senses after the alcohol had been entirely cleansed from their system. Maybe they would put it down as a fluke, as a one-time thing because Sam was back from prison and they were in Italy and the exciting prospect of a four million dollar treasure within reach had made them a little crazy.

Nate deeply, desperately hoped none of that was the case.

 

When he woke up in the morning, Sam had already finished dressing and was swiftly moving around the room. Nate couldn’t squash the flicker of disappointment that arose at the sight. He had sort of been looking forward to waking up beside Sam, even if they still hadn’t hashed out the details of this new thing between them.

His brother was uncharacteristically quiet all the way through breakfast, all under the pretense that the hotel’s dining area wasn’t the place to talk about their future plans. Nate wasn’t buying it and his stomach sank lower with every passing minute Sam wouldn’t meet his eyes. It was all upside down. Yesterday, Sam had been the one afraid to have Nate freak out on him in the morning.

Nate couldn’t have been further from a freak out if he tried. There wasn’t an ounce of regret in him, all he wanted was to have Sam look at him. And if he was honest, he wanted to kiss him again, wanted to be held again, but it didn’t look like his brother was on board with that idea.

Instead, he was moving his food around his plate, earning suspicious glances from Sully, who had joined them for breakfast before they would all head out. Nate wasn’t about to broach the topic with Sully right there at the table with them, so he gulped down his coffee, letting it wash away the bitter taste of bile at the back of his mouth.

“What crawled up your asses today?”

Nate swallowed wrong and coughed coffee back up his throat, waving Sully’s question away. It didn’t exactly serve to smooth the crease between the old man’s eyebrows. Sam kept his eyes firmly glued to his plate.

Back in their room, Nate’s nervous disappointment bubbled over and he opened his mouth while gathering his clothes and stuffing them into his suitcase.

“Sam–”

Sam beat him to it. “Nathan, I gotta tell you something. You mind sitting down?”

The words combined with his resigned tone of voice didn’t inspire trust in Nate. He swallowed and sat, one of his T-shirts still clutched and crumpled in his hands.

“We don’t have to–” he tried to insist but Sam shook his head.

“I lied to you.”

That had come out of left field. Nate blinked. “About what?”

His brother looked entirely miserable and maybe this wasn’t about last night at all. Somehow, that thought was at the same time reassuring – making new hope spark inside of Nate – and dooming at the same time.

Sam sighed, scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “I don’t owe Alcazar anything. He wasn’t the one who busted me out.”

“What? Who did?”

“Rafe.”

The name was like a punch in the guts, taking Nate’s breath away and making nausea bloom in his stomach. “Why? How did he–”

“He found out I wasn’t dead and he got me out.”

“Okay, so why–” Nate shook his head, trying to clear it, mind racing, “Looked like he hates your guts to me.”

“Yeah, pretty sure he does. I stole his research.”

“On Avery?” Nate rose from the bed, not sure what to do with himself. “No, wait, I don’t care about that. Rafe’s been working on this for–” He stopped, “When did he get you out?”

When Sam didn’t immediately answer, Nate knew he had hit gold and for once, he hated it. “Sam.”

Deep breath. “Two years ago.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't hate me. You knew it couldn't last. You knew the drama would come sooner or later.


	8. Chapter 8

_I’m either honest or I’m an optimist but never both at the same time._  
– Radical Face, _Reminders_  


If Nate had thought that the mention of Rafe’s name had hit him hard, it was nothing compared to that admission. Dizziness knocked him back to the edge of the mattress, knees unsteady, and he couldn’t say for sure he wouldn’t throw up.

He ran a shaky hand over his mouth. “So everything you told me was a lie.”

Sam shook his head, pleading with him. “No, I–”

“What, prison made you forget how to use a phone?” Nate was trying not to raise his voice, keep his cool but even in the face of Sam’s obvious remorse, it was an impossible feat.

“Rafe made me promise,” Sam insisted, miserably, “He made me a deal.”

“He made you a–What, he keep you against your will? Cut out your tongue? Two _fucking_ years, Sam, are you shitting me right now?!”

Sam ran a hand through his hair, closed his eyes briefly. “I wanted to. God, Nathan, I wanted to come see you so badly but–”

“Don’t,” Nate shook his head harshly, “Just don’t. Just tell me this: Was everything you told me yesterday a lie? What even _was_ yesterday? Did you–Did you plan all of this to–to, what, make sure I wouldn’t kick your ass to kingdom come and leave you right where you stand? Because if–”

The thought was too painful to finish. His brain refused to complete that line of thinking. Nate wrapped his arms around his own waist, his insides feeling like they were threatening to spill out of him or maybe crawl up his throat.

Sam took an instinctive step toward him, then remembered himself. “No, Nathan, I–All of that was true. It just wasn’t Alcazar who asked me that question in prison.”

“But then I don’t understand how–”

“I didn’t go looking for you?” Sam gave him a smile. “I did. I knew where you were. Knew you had a good life. A family. You had moved on and I didn’t know how to approach you without ruining all of that.”

“Oh, don’t gimme that. Don’t give me some ‘I didn’t wanna ruin your life’ bullshit. You have no idea what it was like.” The shock had worn off and the anger returned viciously. Nate pushed himself off the bed. “You had no idea what I went through all those years. And you could’a stopped it _two years ago_ but you were too, what, selfish? Too stubborn?”

Sam raised his palms as if he was afraid that Nate was going to hit him. Maybe that assumption wasn’t too far off. “What are you talking about?”

“You _died_!” Nate exploded despite all intention not to. “You died right in front of me and I _left_ you there. I spent _fifteen_ years torturing myself, do you even–” He rubbed a shaky hand across his mouth. “I blamed myself for years for leaving, then I blamed myself for not looking harder, then I blamed myself for accepting it because it felt like I was betraying you.”

“Nathan–”

Nate cut through whatever Sam was going to say. “I had fifteen years of guilt and nightmares and missing you–Do you even know how much I _missed_ you, Sam? Every day. I missed you _every single day_. How’s that for moving on?”

Sam’s jaw set. He was breathing hard and maybe he was as close to crying as Nate felt. “I didn’t know.”

“Then you’re not just an asshole, you’re also an idiot.”

Sam nodded, swallowed visibly.

Nate turned his eyes to the ceiling. He sighed. “Tell me what happened. The truth this time, if you don’t mind.”

Sam’s flinch at his acerbic tone was practically imperceptible but Nate still took some pleasure in it.

“One day Rafe just showed up. No idea how he found out, he always kept that secret. He kept a lot of things secret but we worked together on finding clues about the second cross and the treasure. When we had enough, I stole it all from him and bailed. That’s why he hates me now.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Nate returned without thinking and this time Sam visibly winced.

“I wanted to have something to show for all that time. I wanted us to find the treasure together.”

“Why the lies, Sam? Do you think I wouldn’t have gone with you if you’d just asked?”

Sam stayed quiet, just stared at Nate, looking simultaneously incredibly young and every single one of his forty-one years, and Nate realized that he had hit the nail right on the head.

“You’re ridiculous,” he exclaimed in a laugh that was entirely devoid of humor.

“You had a life, Nathan. A legal one, not one where you’re at a constant risk of going to prison.”

“Stop talking,” Nate said, “Just stop talking, please.”

Sam sighed but did as asked. He leaned back against the table, supporting himself on his hands, looking just as tired as Nate felt. All that anger inside him was eating at him, exhausting him, but Nate couldn’t find it in to scream and rage at his brother. Not after…

“Just tell me this: How did you pull last night off? Clara, I mean. Where did she come from?”

“She…” Sam’s eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, that was all a setup, right? You wanted to make it so I couldn’t stay mad at you, right?”

While he said it he wasn’t actually fully convinced of the truth of it. His brother did an amazing impression of an ignorant asshat but but he wasn’t cruel.

“What? No! Christ, Nathan.” The way Sam’s face fell, distress plain in his scrunched-up features, made the tiny glimmer of hope inside of Nate’s chest bloom into something more powerful, and he released the breath he had been holding.

“Jesus,” Sam breathed, “How could you think–” He reached for Nate but Nate took a step back and his hand faltered, then dropped back down against his side.

“I don’t know what to think, Sam. I don’t know what to believe. How am I supposed to know everything you just told me isn’t another lie, isn’t another manipulation?”

Sam opened his mouth to object but he seemed to reconsider. “I guess you don’t. I guess I can’t expect you to believe a word I say.”

“Bingo,” Nate said, unhappy. He turned to the door. “I need some air.”

“Wait.”

Nate halted with his hand on the door handle, every instinct he had screaming at him to bolt. He waited.

“Where do we go from here?” Sam asked and it sounded remarkably factual, as if he had already steeled himself for the inevitable blow.

Nate sighed, closed his eyes. He turned back around. “I’ll go with you to Scotland. We’ve come this far and I’ve already lied to Elena and possibly ruined my marriage, so might as well go through with it.”

“God, Nathan,” Sam ran a hand through his hair while Nate tried to catch up, “I’m so sorry, that’s all on me. I pushed Clara on you last night, you didn’t even–”

Nate realized where this was headed and made a stopping motion. “No, Sam. As much as I would like to blame you for this, I made that decision. Besides, I’m not talking about Clara. That was–” He stopped, gave a nervous laugh.

Sam was looking at him expectantly, brows drawn in hesitant confusion.

“Elena and I,” Nate said, “we’re not exactly exclusive, never have been, so Clara isn’t a big deal. It was a one-night-stand and I’m never gonna see her again. I won’t tell Elena about it and it’ll be fine.”

He licked his lips, averting his eyes from Sam’s face because it was the only way he was able to keep talking. “But you? That’s different. Because … it means something. Because I don’t know what this is. Because it’s _you_. Because–” He made a helpless gesture. “Because.”

Sam was looking at him but his face was too closed off to betray anything he was thinking.

Nate continued, “But that’s all on me as well. I was the one who started things between us last night. So this is on me. And I’m–” He scrubbed the back of his hand over his mouth, shook his head. “I’m just so mad at you right now. God, I’m furious.”

“I know,” Sam allowed, “And for what it’s worth: I am sorry.”

“I believe you.” Nate gave a short laugh, “That’s the problem, isn’t it? I’ve always trusted you. And you used that.”

“I–”

Nate talked over him. “When I was eight and you told me you’d always take care of me, I believed you. When I was twelve and you told me that the best thing for me was that orphanage, I believed you. When you told me Panama would be the big break for us, I believed you. And you were right. Always.” He sighed. “My infallible big brother. How could I not trust you?”

Sam stayed silent, all of his objections, justifications, and apologies seemingly burning away in the face of Nate’s anger.

Nate turned back to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna take a walk, clear my head,” Nate said, pushing the door handle. “Meet you in the foyer in twenty.”

 

“Ready to go?” Sully asked them when they all gathered downstairs. He sounded so excited, already clothed in his pilot gear, that Nate couldn’t bring himself to relate to him what Sam had told him earlier.

He gave them strange looks for the duration of their hike to the plane because the stifling silence was uncharacteristic for both brothers, especially for Sam. He didn’t even try to defuse the tension by making stupid jokes, like he usually would, and somehow it made some of the tension unknot inside of Nate. It meant that his brother was well-aware of how much he had screwed up.

Good.

The flight to Scotland was uneventful and uncomfortable, though thankfully short. The landing proved slightly bumpy due to the fog and rain but at least they knew they were in the right place.

Nate shivered when he exited the plane, shaking out his limbs. He pulled his jacket collar higher, zipped it up tighter. Sam appeared at his side.

“Where to?”

“Graveyard,” Nate answered without looking at him. He pulled out his notebook, checking the coordinates and the tombstone inscription they were on the lookout for. “Should be right over that hill.” He pointed ahead of them. It was quite a way out still but they couldn’t be sure that Rafe hadn’t gotten there before them.

“Alright,” Sam said, “Let’s go.”

He jogged ahead and Nate followed, a sinking feeling in his stomach. He wasn’t confident that the graveyard would yield anything for them. He still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t packed up right there in Italy and headed back home to New Orleans.

Sam didn’t owe anyone anything, except maybe himself and – in his mind at least – Nate. Avery’s treasure had always been more of a bedtime story than an actual goal. It had been a fantasy, a nice one, something they had shared. They had made a solid attempt at finding it fifteen years ago but after Sam’s apparent death, there hadn’t been anything for Nate to come back to. He hadn’t been able to stand thinking about it, much less actually looking for it.

Finding out that Sam had actively worked toward it for two years put things in perspective.

Still, Nate wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t doing this just so he could keep an eye on Sam. Liar or not, Nate wasn’t going to risk losing him again just because he couldn’t let go of an obsession that was more likely to get him – and possibly Nate – killed than lead them anywhere.

Sam called his name from his position ahead of him and Nate tripped on a root, not paying attention to where he was stepping. “What?”

“I said,” Sam drawled, “Don’t slack off. I’m supposed to be the old one, remember?”

“I’ll show you old,” Nate returned under his breath, out of habit, and caught up with his brother.

They were both winded by the time they crested the hill. Nate was just about to lean forward, supporting himself on his knees to catch his breath, when he spotted the _Shoreline_ logo on a crate at the foot of the hill. Without thinking, he pulled Sam down into the tall grass next to him, balancing on his haunches.

His brother gave a little ‘oof’ sound and nearly toppled over. Nate caught his elbow. “You see anyone?”

Sam’s eyes flickered to him, then away to scan the area. The base camp seemed to be deserted but it looked like the mercenaries might be about to return any moment, judging by the unlocked weapon crates and the baskets of grenades. They had satellite communication set up and Nate’s fingers itched with the urge to search the camp for maps or other pointers as to which area they were searching. It hadn’t looked like anyone had touched the graveyard but it was only a matter of time until Rafe and his people bought a clue.

Sam nudged his shoulder. “Looks like we’re clear. Go?”

There wasn’t any point in staying in their current location, so they edged around the camp, only stealing their way into one of the tents when they were sure no one was around. Still, the thrilling nervousness never went away and Nate grinned to himself, giddiness nearly bubbling over despite everything.

He had missed this, there was no way of denying it. Fifteen years since he had had it, going on to discover secrets with his brother that other people only dreamed of, and the feeling, that overwhelming excitement, nearly made him forget what Sam had confessed to him.

“Hey, Nathan,” Sam called from a few feet away and Nate turned around, finding his idiot brother to actually be juggling a set of fucking grenades.

“Careful with–” Nate caught one out of the air, putting it back into its box. “Do you have a death wish?”

Sam shot him a bright-white grin and shrugged, then put the grenades away. Nate unclenched, his spine noticeably losing its rigidness.

He lost the fight against involuntary laughter. Shaking his head, he said, “I can’t believe you.”

Sam shrugged again, then turned on the spot, looking around. “I think we should go. Find anything?”

“Nah,” Nate admitted before he reconsidered and reached into the box of grenades. “Think I’m taking some of those with me, though. You know, just in case.”

His brother shot him a smile. “You always liked to blow shit up.”

Nate groaned but the corners of his mouth turned up against his will. “That was one time. And it was an accident.”

“Whatever you say, Rambo.”

With an eye roll, Nate ushered his brother in front of him. “Let’s just go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, lots of angst and feelings and no cliffhanger this time (are you proud of me?).


	9. Chapter 9

_It ain’t the truth we chase, it’s the promise of a better place.  
_ – Radical Face _, Ghost Towns_

They made it about another half mile until they found themselves smack dab in the middle of another camp, this one crawling with men carrying automatic rifles. Neither he nor Sam were strangers to guns and Nate’s aim was impeccable but this was too close to insanity for his tastes.

The sensible part of him, the one that had kept him alive for going on forty years, was telling him to turn tail and run. The other part, the one that had always thrived on the thrill of danger, had always felt a perverse pleasure at running headfirst into the unknown, that part was now pushing him forward, up to the very edge of the camp’s parameter.

The tall grass, the lingering fog, and the brick ruins gave more than enough cover to creep along until he could sneak up onto one of the men and grab him from behind in a chokehold, pulling him to the ground. He went down like a sack of cement, out like a light.

The thud of his body hitting the ground alarmed someone else standing nearby and unfortunately he managed to call out before Sam backhanded him with his pistol from behind.

The pain of the bullet that whizzed past and took a chunk out of Nate’s biceps was instant and blinding. He wheezed, stumbled, but maintained the presence of mind to roll out of the way as more projectiles hailed down on the spot where he had just stood. He clutched the shredded sleeve of his jacket that was slowly soaking through.

Fucking hell, that _hurt_. He had forgotten how much this hurt.

Sam called his name and he called back, “I’m fine!” without listening to what his brother was saying. His ears were ringing and he was busy trying to breathe through the pain so he wouldn’t pass out.

A hand came down on his shoulder and he startled violently. Then Sam said, “Just me. We gotta get outta here.”

The wall they crouched behind was keeping them out of sight and clear of the bullets but it was only a matter of time until they would be spotted again.

“Yeah,” Nate gritted out. “Got a plan?”

“Let me,” Sam said in lieu of an answer, reaching for Nate’s arm. Nate flinched away instinctively but Sam only set his jaw and grabbed the bottom of Nate’s shirt sleeve peaking out from under his jacket, deftly ripping it off. “It’s just a graze, looks worse than it is.”

Nate couldn’t tell for whose benefit that explanation was but it didn’t matter much.

Sam wrapped the fabric strip around his fist, stretching it out, then tied it around the wound. Nate was grinding his teeth so hard they creaked. He gave a small gasp of pain when Sam pulled the makeshift bandage tight.

“You good?”

Nate nodded, flexing his trembling fingers.

He was less experienced with aiming with his left arm but he made it work and with Sam covering him, they made it across the camp in one – messy, rumpled, slightly bloody – piece.

Sam was frowning, wiping at a cut on his cheek. “Well, that was fun. Ain’t doing that again any time soon.”

Nate’s arm was on fire. “Shut up and keep moving.”

Sam shot him a look, his expression softening, but then he clenched his jaw again. He turned away, trodding ahead.

 

By the time they arrived at the graveyard it had started snowing heavily and Nate was wet and tired. At least the pain in his arm had lessened some.

“How’re you doing?” Sam asked.

“Been better. Been worse,” Nate replied. “Tell me, how did you spent the past two years?”

Sam’s eyebrows rose at the sudden change in topic. “Nathan–”

“No, I wanna hear it.”

“Research, mostly. Scouring locations. Arguing with Rafe. Avoiding Rafe.” Sam made a helpless gesture. “Wondering about you. Hating myself. The usual.”

Nate sighed, shook his head. “You do anything fun while you were specifically _not_ telling me you were alive?” He couldn’t help that it came out sour.

Sam gave him a sad smile but didn’t offer an answer and Nate didn’t really know what to do with that.

“Was there–” He swallowed, already knowing he would regret the question. “Was there someone–I mean, while you were–” He closed his eyes, defeated. “Never mind. Let’s just–”

“No,” Sam said, not looking at Nathan, “There wasn’t.”

“Sorry, I don’t know why I asked that.”

_Liar, liar, pants on fire._

Sam smiled at him again in that same resigned way, then he wiped his snow-splattered face, pushing his wet hair off his forehead.

Nate cleared his throat. “Gotta look for that inscription,” he said unnecessarily. He waved his right arm around, flinching when he was painfully reminded of the bullet wound. “I’m gonna take this side, you take the other.”

In another context, he wouldn’t have thought twice about that statement – division of labor was the most efficient way of working after all – but today it held a more significant meaning. At least that’s what it felt like. Splitting up had never felt more like severing something vital.

It was ridiculous.

 

By the time they had found the right grave, including the mechanism to open an underground pathway, they were soaked through to the bones and shivering despite their jackets. The stairway down was old and rickety and the air in the dark hallway was stuffy but it was blissfully dry.

At the bottom of the stairwell Sam shook himself like a wet dog. Nate shielded his face with his hand to avoid any more water, although by now it didn’t make much of a difference.

“Well, what did I tell you?” Sam had his arms outstretched, turning on the spot between the narrow walls, grinning openly at Nate.

Despite his exhaustion, despite the pain in his right arm and all those other tiny aches, despite the weather, Nate found himself smiling back. “What, you told me Avery’s grave would lead to a centuries-old secret passageway? ‘Cause I don’t recall that.”

Sam shrugged. “I said we’d find something.” He gestured around. “Close enough. You’re the eternal pessimist.”

It had always been the same between them. Nate had accused Sam of being too blue-eyed, too driven by excitement and not enough by common sense. Too naive and too painfully optimistic. It had taken Nate quite a while to figure out that most of that had been a front for his sake. Nate had let him pretend because sometimes it was nice to just believe.

Nate had just cleared the stairs leading down when Sam’s hand on his shoulder halted him. “You’re bleeding through your bandage.”

Nate flexed his arm, feeling the torn skin pinch and burn. He hadn’t even noticed the blood running down his elbow.

“We should head back, I gotta stitch this.”

Nate looked at his brother, surprised to find no disappointment there. If they didn’t move forward now, Rafe was likely to catch up with them and beat them to whatever they would find down in that crypt.

He shook his head. “It’s fine, I swear. We gotta keep moving.”

“Nathan–”

“Hold this.” He handed Sam his flashlight, then opened his jacket to get at his shirt. He ripped the hem off it all the way around, gritting his teeth against the pull in his biceps. He held the strip out to his brother. “You mind?”

“Jesus,” Sam chuckled, “You’re worse than me. Come here, ‘It’s Just a Flesh Wound’.”

Nate pressed his lips together against a pained gasp when Sam wrapped his arm, on top of the soaked-through bandage.

“Alright,” he managed, slightly breathless, “Let’s go.”

 

Scotland was truly beautiful and Nate had even missed the moldy air of the caves and while his fingers where nearly numb with the cold, he was running on excitement and adrenaline. It was liberating to be all the way out here. He had always loved the feeling of laying eyes on a space no one else has touched in centuries.

When the cave floor showing Madagascar eventually gave way below them thanks to Shoreline’s bomb squat wannabes, Nate wished he had committed the map to memory. He didn’t think that they needed to know more than to go to King’s Bay but he could have missed something and never know.

Grunting, he tried to pull himself up to the ledge he had skidded off of once a big part of the map had broken away and the pillars had started to come down. His injured arm betrayed him and he lost his grip, pain searing through his biceps as he held on with his other hand. He kicked with his legs but there was no purchase to be gained.

“Nathan,” Sam called to him as he hit his knees right near the edge. He reached down. “Come on, little brother, we gotta go.”

“I hate Scotland,” Nate returned over the rumble of the rubble falling around them as he caught his brother’s outstretched arm and let himself be pulled up, crying out as it tore at the wound.

Sam watched him clutch his arm, forehead wrinkling. “Stubborn bastard,” he said, “Should’a let me stitch it.”

Nate pushed forward into a run. “Get angry at me later.”

Once they were outside and able to catch their breath, Nate noticed it was still snowing. Sam leaned forward, bracing himself on his knees, taking a second to rest. There were smears of dirt all over his face and neck.

“I’m not surprised.”

Nate dusted off his jacket, gently shaking out his bad arm. The wound had started bleeding again and he knew it needed a miracle for it not to become infected. “What’s that?”

“Avery has done nothing but lead us by the nose so far.”

“So?”

Sam gave him a wry smile. “We go to Madagascar, then what? We find a clue that leads us to the Himalayas?”

“I don’t understand,” Nate said, “You’re the one who’s so hellbent on finding this treasure. You’ve been working on it for the last two years.” The words came out a tad too bitter.

“I know, I’m just–” Sam shook his head, his gaze flitting to Nate’s injured arm. He sighs. “Maybe it’s not worth it.”

Nate lifted his elbow, grimacing when a jolt of pain attacked him. “This? Is nothing. I’ve had far worse.”

Sam’s lip curled. “That ain’t exactly reassuring.”

Nate gave him a grin. Despite everything that just happened in the cave, how close they had come only to be disappointed again, he was ecstatic. Probably all that left-over adrenaline.

“Come on. Let’s catch up with Sully and get the hell off this soggy rock.”

Sam smiled back. “No argument from me.”


	10. Chapter 10

_At night I can still hear your grin like an echo sounding from my sins.  
_ – Radical Face, _Echoes_

“What the hell did you get yourselves into?” Sully called out to them over the roar of the wind and the water as they reached the plane.

Nate shouted back, “Oh, you know us.”

The old man grumbled something that couldn’t be heard over the weather but Nate could use his imagination. Inexplicably, he was grinning while he hopped into the cargo hold of the plane, Sam right behind him. They planted themselves onto the emergency seats as the plane pulled up and into the air.

“So? Where to?” Sully asked, hands relaxed on the wheel.

“King’s Bay, Madagascar,” Nate and Sam answered at the same time and Sully shot them a raised eyebrow. He punched in the coordinates wordlessly.

Nate leaned his back against the outer part of the plane, feeling the vibrations of it, and closed his eyes. He felt his brother nudge his shoulder.

“Hey, don’t go to sleep on me.”

Nate blinked his eyes back open, taking in Sam’s concerned face. “I’m fine,” he said, “Just tired.”

“Yeah.” Sam got up once they were steady in the air and grabbed their small med kit from his bag. “That’s what worries me.”

He knelt down next to Nate’s seat and unwrapped the blood-crusted bandages from his arm. Nate hissed at the pull. He could feel the warmth of blood trickling out of it. He let his brother clean it with a bottle of water, heedless of the puddle that formed on the floor of the plane.

“This is gonna hurt,” Sam warned and before Nate could ask him to clarify, the blinding pain of isopropyl on an open wound hit him, making him clench his teeth and drop his head against the headrest.

“Sorry.” It actually sounded like Sam meant it and Nate gasped, “Don’t worry about it.”

The pin-prick pain of the needle repeatedly piercing his skin as Sam stitched the wood was weirdly familiar. They had had their fair share of bruises and injuries in their youth and while Nate had been taking it easy the last decade or so, he was transported right back to the countless times they had tended to each other’s wounds after a fight or a plan gone south. Everything about it was known to him, the pull and tug of the thread and Sam’s warm, steady hands on his skin as he tied off the stitches and then applied a clean bandage.

Nate let his eyes slid shut again, head turning to the side. “Thank you.”

Sam hovered nearby. “You’re welcome.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll see if we still have some painkillers around.”

Nate was about to tell him not to bother but he figured maybe he could catch some sleep if he wasn’t constantly dragged back to consciousness by the throbbing ache in his arm. He had run on adrenaline and excitement for most the of past two hours but now exhaustion took him and he felt his limbs turn to lead.

Sam nudged him back into wakefulness, handing him two pills and a full bottle of water. Nate accepted both, then leaned back in his seat. He was fairly sure he felt Sam’s knuckles ghost-brushing against his temple and along his forehead before he drifted off.

 

Nate was jostled awake a while later when the plane lurched. He blinked his eyes open, not knowing how much time had passed since he had fallen asleep. Judging from the crick in his neck and his achey spine, it must have been quite a while. No one ever said treasure hunting was glamorous.

He got to stretch his legs and found Sam behind the wheel in the cockpit with Sully snoring in the co-pilot seat.

“I didn’t know you could fly a plane.” Nate braced himself on the back of Sam’s seat, the knuckles of his fingers brushing his brother’s shoulders.

Sam threw a small smile over his shoulder before he focused back on the land unfolding below them. “Learned a thing or two over the past two years.” 

The words came out a little hesitantly and Nate swallowed, putting his hands on Sam’s shoulders to show that he was slowly getting over it. They still had a lot to talk about but it could wait until they had touched down in Madagascar. He felt his brother relax under his palms.

“How’re you feeling?”

Nate shrugged, the motion tugging at the stitches in his biceps. It still hurt when he moved it but it was much better since Sam had cleaned and taken care of it. “I’m good,” he said simply.

“Your hands are too hot.”

Nate removed them from Sam’s shoulders and rubbed them together, feeling the damp warmth between them. Now that he thought about it, he was feeling a bit warm.

He pushed up his sleeves. “I’m fine.”

Sam made a displeased sound, then nudged his elbow into Sully’s side. The man woke up with a grunt. “The hell?”

Sam turned out of his seat, relinquishing the wheel to Sully. “You mind?”

Nate objected again, insisting  that he was all right as Sam pushed him back onto the emergency seat. Wordlessly, with a frown crinkling his brows, he pressed the palm of his hand against Nate’s forehead. 

Nate nearly groaned at the pleasant coolness of Sam’s skin against his. He actually yelped when Sam tugged up the hem of his shirt and pressed his palm onto Nate’s stomach right below his ribs. 

Sam pulled away. His frown deepened. “You’re developing a fever.” He knelt down next to Nate. “Let me check that.”

Nate was about to protest but he found himself too tired to fight his brother on this and, besides, Sam’s hands on him felt nice. He winced as the bandage was peeled away.

“I gotta clean this again. You okay with that?”

Nate nodded, resting his head back and preparing himself for the sting of the alcohol. For some reason, it was even worse this time around and a small moan escaped his pressed lips. Sam’s fingers curled around his wrist, thumb stroking his pulse point.

“Okay?”

Nate nodded again, exhaling. On instinct, he turned his hand so he could catch Sam’s fingers between his own, holding on for a moment, squeezing, then letting go. 

“Why don’t you take the seat up front?” Sam asked him while he applied a clean bandage. “It’s more comfortable and you can catch some more shut-eye.”

Nate shook his head. “I’m good, I promise. You’re more useful in there right now.”

Sam gave him a small smile. “Well, naturally,” he said, just to be annoying, but his eyes still showed concern. 

Nate couldn’t stop himself from reaching out, tugging gently at a loose strand of Sam’s hair. Sam laughed and twisted his hair out of Nate’s grip.

“Get some sleep, little brother,” he said on his way back to the cockpit.

 

Nate hadn’t noticed that he had knocked back out until someone gently shook him by the shoulder. 

“Nathan? You with me?”

Nate startled the rest of the way awake. It was dark outside. “We there?” He tried to sit up but it was slow-going, his entire body hurting.

“Not quite yet.” Sam was kneeling by his seat. “I just wanted to check on you. You’re sweating.”

“Yeah, it’s hot in here.” Nate reached for his collar, unsticking it from his skin. Then he noticed Sam was wearing his jacket.

“It’s really not.”

Nate swallowed, his throat dry. “You got some water?”

Sam had handed him a bottle before Nate had even finished the question. He accepted it with thanks, chugging it all down with several big gulps.

“We’ll be another few hours.” Sam balanced on his haunches. “You gonna be okay?”

Nate gave him a small smile and somehow even that was uncomfortable. “I’m always okay.” 

His brother was looking up at him and Nate couldn’t figure out the expression on his face. He wanted to reach out and touch him, maybe give him a reassuring clap on the shoulder, but it would hurt too much and he was too tired still. Somehow these intermittent naps had made his exhaustion even worse.

He watched Sam fold his legs under him to sit on the floor, leaned back against Nate’s seat. He folded his arms in front of his chest and tilted his head against Nate’s thighs, eyes closing.

“Your back is gonna hate you for this,” Nate said because it was all he could say, brutally aware of the contact. He felt like he was burning up and maybe he _was_ coming down with a fever.

He inched his hand along his leg, tangling the tips of his fingers in Sam’s familiarly messy hair. 

For the next two hours Nate hovered between sleep and wakefulness. His body was heavy and his eyes kept slipping shut but the throbbing pain in his arm and the underlying ache in his limbs kept him awake.

Sam migrated back to the co-pilot seat for the landing and Nate shook his shoulders out once they had set down. The sudden silence and the lack of vibration from the plane’s engine was actually sort of strange. 

“We have to find a place to rent a car tomorrow morning,” Sully reminded them once they had landed and were on the way to the bungalow they had rented for the week. Sam was carrying both his and Nate’s bags and Nate was so grateful that he couldn’t even protest.

The air was cool and Nate was shivering, sweat drying on his skin. He was burning from the inside out, heat leaking out of him, and his skin felt clammy. Despite the late hour humidity lingered and it didn’t improve his condition.

The bungalow was spartan, small with low ceilings, but clean and Nate didn’t think anything had ever looked more inviting than the queen-sized bed in the far corner of the main room. There was an adjacent bathroom, which he bypassed completely, a desk, a small table with a coffee maker, and a closed door that presumably led to another bedroom.

If Nate wasn’t so tired, he was sure he would have blushed at the implication of sharing a bed with his brother under the cover of convenience and lack of space. He shot a glance at Sam out of the corner of his eye but his brother only regarded him with worry. He looked like he was thinking hard about something.

“What?”

Sam shook his head. “Nothing. You gotta get some proper sleep.”

“We should talk about how we’re gonna proceed tomorrow,” Nate objected but it was half-hearted. He knew when he had reached his limits. His eyes kept slipping shut and there wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t hurt. He felt weak and hated it.

“There’s time for that in the morning, kid,” Sully chimed in and his tone didn’t exactly leave room for negotiations so Nate accepted defeat and slumped onto the bed. He took his time getting his boots off and he would have liked to change into cleaner clothes but the lure of sleep was much stronger.

As he settled down he caught Sam’s eyes across the room. “You have that look,” he said, words slurred with exhaustion.

Sam returned, “What look?”

“The one you have when you’re about to do something stupid.”

His brother gave a small laugh but didn’t refute it. “Don’t worry about it. Just get some rest.”

Nate wanted to say something else but he didn’t get to before he was pulled under.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for taking this long to update. I mean, I _do_ have an excuse, several actually, but still... The last weeks have been crazy and I'm not out of the woods yet. I've got my fingers crossed for inspiration to strike on the weekend, so I can maybe possibly pre-write one or two chapters but who knows. My muse has been disproportionally fickle.

_I was never one to lie down despite who picked the fight.  
_ – Radical Face, _Family Portrait_

Nate woke again when he sensed someone next to him. Pain shot through his body as he tensed up and shot off the bed. Adrenaline-induced dizziness blinded him for a moment before a hand came down gently on his shoulder.

“‘s just me.” Sam’s familiar voice instantly made the tension dissipate. “Here. Got you something.”

It was pitch-dark and when Sam clicked on the lamp on the nightstand, Nate had to blink against the sudden brightness. Sam was holding out a tiny bottle of pills to him that had a small while label that Nate couldn’t read in the low light. 

“What’s that?”

“Antibiotics. Don’t argue with me on this.”

Nate hadn’t been about to but now that had Sam said it, somehow he felt like he had to. “Where’d you get those?”

“Hospital. Or what counts as one ‘round here.”

“So you stole them.”

Sam looked at him as if he was a bit slow. “No, I asked nicely. Of course I stole them. Where else did you think I’d get antibiotics in the middle of the night in Madagascar?”

Nate took the bottle and eyed the label suspiciously. “How do you even know they’re the right ones?”

Sam rolled his eyes and it’s such a familiar visual that Nate can’t help but relax a little. “Because I’m not an idiot, okay? Now will you quit arguing and take them?”

Nate sighed and waggled his fingers for some water. Sam handed him a bottle, which he used to wash down the pills and then proceeded to empty completely. He hadn't even noticed how thirsty he was. 

“More?” Sam asked but Nate shook his head. The water already made him feel a bit better and all he longed for was to go back to sleep.

“Have you even gotten any sleep yet?”

Sam’s silence sufficed as an answer. Nate patted the space next to him. “Come on, no point in you being exhausted because you’re fussing over me.”

“I don’t fuss,” Sam said but he kicked off his shoes, switched off the light, and lay down beside Nate with a relieved sigh. He turned his face into the pillow but Nate caught his yawn.

“Thank you,” he said, putting emphasis on the words.

Sam gave him a small smile, his eyes slipping shut. His hair fanned out against the pillow and Nate felt the urge to run his fingers through it. He wanted to touch Sam, maybe pull him close, and perhaps it was the fact that he felt weak and sick. It still felt too much like a dream that he had his brother back, and the familiarity and lingering foreignness of it was messing with his head. 

The tiredness and pain surely amplified his confusion and his helplessness but it had only been a few days and at the same time it already felt much longer than that. They were both fifteen years older than they had been and so much had changed and at the same time nothing really had. Nate was still that guy who longed for his brother like he always had when Sam hadn’t been around.

“I can hear you thinking over there,” Sam said without opening his eyes, “It’s very loud.”

“Sorry,” Nate said automatically.

He heard Sam heave a sigh before he shuffled closer, fingers knocking against Nate’s sternum. “C’mere.”

Nate fitted himself into his brother’s body like he had done as a kid scared of the thunderstorms at night. It still provided the same sense of comfort.

Sam’s hand brushed his hair back, then cool lips pressed briefly against his overheated forehead. Sam made an unhappy sound at feeling the high temperature and squeezed Nate’s shoulder. 

“If this fever climbs any higher, we gotta do something about it.”

Nate hums, agreeing mostly to get Sam to shut up. His brother’s hand hadn’t stopped stroking his hair and it was actually pretty nice. 

He felt compelled to say, “I’m still kinda mad at you, you know.”

Sam’s fingers stilled, then resumed their petting. “I know. And you should be.”

“Damn straight,” Nate managed before he dropped back into sleep.

 

He woke up cold and disoriented. It took him a moment to pinpoint what had startled him awake and he registered the turning of a key in the front door lock and a second later, Sam and Sully poured into the room.

“Morning, kid,” Sully’s deep baritone greeted him, “Feeling any better?”

Nate rubbed his eyes, shaking himself out of his sleep haze. “Where’d you guys go?”

Sam replied, “To get breakfast.”

“And rent a car,” Sully added, then proceeded to mutter something under his breath. Nate only caught the words ‘winch’ and ‘ripoff’ and decided not to worry about it.

“Alright,” he said and sat up, fighting against the onslaught of dizziness that threatened to knock him back onto the mattress. He steadied himself on his knees and ignored the look Sam shot him. “What’s the plan from here on out?”

Sully hesitated, cleared his throat, and Nate’s eyebrows drew together. He didn’t like the promise of that. 

“Your brother and I agree that it makes more sense for you to hang back for now and let us–”

Nate interjected, “You want me to what?”

There came a weary sigh from Sam and it only served to rile up Nate more. “Fat chance in hell, Sam,” he said, “We have no idea how much Rafe knows and how many of Nadine Ross’s men are already here.”

“Nate–”

“Automatic rifles, Sam,” Nate emphasized, gesturing to his bandaged arm. “Do I have to remind you of that?” He turned to his oldest friend. “And no offense, Sully, but you’re not exactly the quickest on your feet anymore.”

Amusement flitted over Sully’s face before he schooled his expression. He put his hands on his hips, nodding at Nate’s injury. “Well, neither are you right now, kiddo.”

Nate pressed through his teeth, “I’m fine.”

“Catch!” Sam suddenly called out and lobbed something at Nate. Without thinking, Nate stretched out his right hand to catch it, inhaling sharply at the painful tug on his stitches. He missed the catch by about an inch and the small bottle of antibiotics hit him in the shoulder, then plopped onto the blanket next to his hip.

“Yeah,” Sam said, head tilted to the side, “You’re fine.”

“You surprised me.” Nate picked up the bottle and shook some pills into his palm, then proceeded to swallow them dry.

Sully said, “This really isn’t negotiable, kid.”

Nate would have objected if he wasn’t still occupied with forcing the pills down his parched throat. Sully immediately held out a hand to quiet him before he could say anything.

“We’re just going to scout out the area, getting a feel of the land,” he continued, “We’ve got maps and we’re going to mark anything important. That’s all. Nothing dangerous.”

Sam apparently couldn’t stop the little snort that came at those words and Sully shot him a disapproving look.

Nate didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all. It felt like insanity to allow the two people – save for Elena – he cared most for in the world to head out into potential danger without him. 

But he still felt the infection raging inside of him, running its course, and as much as he hated to admit it, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t be a liability if push came to shove. So maybe this was for the best.

He ground his teeth until they creaked. “Fine.”

Neither Sam’s nor Sully’s expression betrayed what they were thinking about all this. 

Nate said, “But you give me updates. Texts or calls, promise me.” He pointed at Sam, who finally cracked a small smile.

“Yes, mom,” he said and the ribbing loosened some of the nervous tension inside Nate.

“I hate you both so much right now,” he mumbled and Sully bellowed a laugh.

“Kid, believe me, most days the feeling’s mutual.”

 

Despite his restlessness Nate fell back asleep fairly soon after his brother and Sully had left. He checked his phone when he woke up but there was only an hour-old message from Sam that read: 

_Just checking in. Not dead yet._

The wording, despite the obvious joke, made something clench in Nate’s guts. He shook himself out of it and decided to struggle into a pair of jeans and shrug on his jacket to go out and hunt down some coffee and food. He was starving.

Since he didn’t have a rental, he set out on foot, trying to breathe against the humid air. His fever had gone down – at least that’s what it felt like – but he still felt week and achy. He gently felt his biceps, the wound still hot to the touch under the bandage.

After about an hour of wandering aimlessly, he came upon a market place that offered a wide variety of produce and cooked foods. He snatched a little bit of everything, praying he wouldn’t catch a stomach bug along with the infection.

A lemur slinked around his legs before taking off again, followed by a playful dog and Nate watched them for a moment, animal chasing after animal. He would have to talk to Elena about getting a dog once they made it back home.

Thinking about his wife, strangely, made him think about that night two days ago – somehow it felt like forever ago. He wasn’t even really mad at Sam anymore. The overwhelming relief, exhilaration, and disbelief from having his brother back remained, overshadowing his lingering anger at his brother’s betrayal.

He was mostly disappointed in himself for not fact-checking Sam’s story, for being too gullible, too trusting after such a long time. They lost two unnecessary extra years – which is what he was _really_ mad about. 

He was also afraid. That there was more Sam wasn’t telling him. That he would lose him again. He was scared that, whether they found the treasure or not, once this trip was over, they would go their separate ways and Nate would fall back into the rut he had been in before. He was afraid that he would realize he had missed out on something along the line. Was afraid of what Elena would think about everything. What would he even tell her?

It was easier not to think about it for the time being but that was a temporary solution.

On instinct, he grabbed for his phone, not yet sure if he was going to call his wife or check for a message from his brother. His stomach ran cold as he patted his empty jeans pocket.

“Crap,” he muttered to himself and turned around to walk back to the bungalow.

He reached it eventually, shaky and drenched in sweat just from walking, and stopped dead when he saw the door standing wide open.

Slinking along the outside wall, he peeked inside and instantly relaxed when he spotted Sully.

“Hey, what are you–”

Sully whirled around, a harried expression on this face. “There you are! Fuck, I’ve been calling you for _hours._ ”

Nate froze. “What happened?” He looked around, his exhaustion and pounding head ignored for the moment. “Where’s Sam?”

Sully didn’t immediately answer and Nate rushed toward him to shake the answer out of him, nearly tripping over his own feet.

“He’s fine,” Sully insisted, steadying Nate and closing the door behind them, “Well, I mean. I hope.”

“You hope?!” Nate couldn’t say whether it was the exhaustion from his little trip or from the nauseating worry that crashed down on him, but in any case, his legs suddenly turned wobbly enough for him to have to sit down on the chair by the desk to avoid an unpleasant encounter with the floor.

He gritted his teeth, fighting against the dizziness. “What _happened_? Where is he?!”

To Sully’s benefit, he looked distinctly harried. Out of breath and slightly sweaty, with his usually neatly combed hair slightly out of place. “We got fucking ambushed. I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming.”

“What do you mean?”

Sully wiped some sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “There are towers all around the volcano, each marked with a pirate symbol. We figured we find the right one, we find the treasure, or at least some more clues leading to it. Thanks to the coin you boys came back with we narrowed it down to two towers and we split up to–“

“You _what_?” Nate had to grip the back of the chair to steady himself as he shot upright and vertigo took him. “Tell me you weren’t _stupid_ enough to let him–”

“Calm down, Nathan.” The stern tone and the use of his full name weirdly enough made Nate stop in his tracks. “I’m not a babysitter and your brother’s not a child – despite his best efforts to act like one.” Sully shook his head, rubbing his temple, looking almost as tired as Nate felt. “Rafe wants him for something. He ain’t gonna kill him. We’ve got time.”

The no-nonsense way Sully said it made Nate shiver with despair. He could feel the chill settle in his stomach, the one that reminded him that his luck was more than fragile. That finding out Sam was alive had been miracle enough to use up all his favors from the universe. 

_Of course I couldn’t be allowed to keep him_.

“Hey,” Sully snapped his fingers in Nate’s face, “We’ll get him back, okay? We will.”

Nate forced himself to swallow and regulate his breathing. Slowly, he nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “We will. And then I’ll kill him myself.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, I'm back. It was been a long and winding road but I made it out the other side. I would like to apologize again for my absence – I haven't been well this past (half) year. I don't want to promise regular update even though I will try my best and I am much better. I am slowly finding my groove and I am excited to get back into this project.  
> This chapter ain't my best work by far but I'm just glad I brought something to paper (or to Scrivener document). I hope you are, too. Thank you so much for sticking with me and loving this story as much as I do.  
> Find typos? They're yours.

_I am always reminded of lies that we told but never meant._  
– Radical Face, _Echoes_  


It was difficult to establish a timeline. The past few days already felt like weeks to Nate, stretching like thick gum, and yet, time appeared to be running away from him. The battery of his cell phone was going fast with how much he kept checking it despite the obvious. 

No sign from Sam since that annoyingly flippant message almost five hours ago. Nate had that vague, movie-like urge to smash his phone against the nearest wall, but not only were they already in the car and hurtling land-inward, it was also the only method of communication he had, and a slowly dwindling one at that.

He had let Sully drive for once. Because he was still somewhat dizzy and the afternoon heat didn’t help, but more so because he needed to keep an eye on his phone, the other on the map, and his brain on every awful fucking scenario he could come up with.

Okay, so he could have done with a distraction. He shook out his arm that was starting to itch under the bandage. He had taken the most recent dose of the antibiotics before they left but it was taking way too long to get rid of the infection in his book. Not that he was actively doing anything to help the process along.

He had pocketed some grade-A painkillers from their medkit and he was contemplating taking some, not because he was in pain but because they might dull the effects of the infection for a while in case Sam needed him on top of his game. There was no way of telling what would welcome them once they had reached the tower Sam – and subsequently Rafe – had found.

“Did he say something to you?” Nate asked Sully, carefully avoiding the words _What was the last thing he said?_

Sully shrugged, outward nonchalance. “He said he’d found the right tower. Now, I don’t know whether he actually had or he _thought_ he had because Rafe got there before him and put him on a wrong trail.”

“So what you’re saying is you know nothing.” Nate hadn’t meant for it to sound so snide but the heat was giving him a headache. He wiped some moisture off his forehead with the hem of his T-shirt. The fabric was clinging to his chest and back and it was already mostly soaked through. Sully looked breezy as ever in his collared shirt.

_Christ_ , he was tired.

Sully tossed him a quick glance from behind his sunglasses. “We find the right tower, we find Sam. ‘s how I see it.”

“What if he’s not there?” Nate shot back, “What if Rafe decides he doesn’t need him anymore before we can find him? What if–”

“Okay, woah.” Sully held up a hand, then patted Nate’s arm once. “Let’s just focus on getting there, okay? Eyes on the price.”

Nate swallowed hard. The wind in his hair was strangely calming. It helped with his overheated forehead and his racing thoughts.

“The towers,” he said as Sully expertly steered them over the uneven terrain, “Which ones were the ones you guys narrowed it down to?”

“On the other side of the coin, not the one with the volcano,” Sully said, “is one of the pirate sigils. We just couldn’t make out whether it was England or that other guy, King Triton.”

“Farrell,” supplied automatically, “The trident’s Farrell.”

Sully waved a hand. “Sure, whatever. So, Sam took England, I took Farrell.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Besides a dead coyote and a shit ton of mosquitos? Squat.”

Nate traced a road on his map. If it could be called a road. Another jolt of the Jeep jostled him and made his stomach turn. He was seriously considering the pain killers now. His body ached all over.

“So it’s gotta be England. Rafe must have found out about it, too, and surprised Sam. I mean, hell, no one would stand a chance against that army. Not alone.” He clenched his teeth, his hand crinkling the map. He consciously relaxed his fingers, breathing in. Breathing out.

“If there’s something to be found, we’ll find it.”

“Sully,” Nate said through a locked jaw, “Sam went radio-silent hours ago. Who knows what went down in that time. We don’t even know if he’s still–”

“Kid, stop.” Sully’s tone was as calm as ever. Now that he thought about it, Nate couldn’t remember an occasion where Sully had sounded upset, stressed, or anything other than his slightly smug, hard-ass self. Others might mistake it for coldness but nothing about Victor Sullivan had ever been cold. Although Nate didn’t doubt that he would make one hell of a scary business partner when crossed.

It was strange that Nate had forged such a bond with the older man from the moment he was fifteen and too reckless for his own good, scraping by through sheer dumb luck on a daily basis. Sully had saved his life back then and maybe that was it, but the man had become his family. A parent more than his parents had ever been. But Sam hadn’t had the same luck. He had been twenty already and off on “business trips” how he had called them – and it had sounded terribly important to a teenage Nate. In truth, they had been nothing more than Sam sneaking around somewhere, stealing something for someone for a less than meager pay. They were both too young and too screwed up to know better or to make something out of themselves.

Nate ached for his brother who hadn’t really had the chance to grow up in any way at all. He had never had a Sully – not for lack of trying on Sully’s part but Sam was nothing if not stubbornly independent and headstrong – or an Elena for that matter.

Nate had his phone is his hand before he realized it, his fingers pressing the quick call button.

“Nate?” his wife answered on the second ring, almost as if she had been sitting by the phone.

“Hey honey,” he said and the pet name sounded stale in his mouth. Wrong somehow. God, he was an asshole. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” she replied with apprehension. “Everything all right over there?”

“Yeah,” Nate said, “Yeah, we’re good. It’s just, I missed you.”

It was the truth even if he hadn’t meant to say it. He closed his eyes briefly, imagining her blonde hair pulled to a ponytail, business-like, pen and paper lying somewhere close to her, her nose scrunched up in thought as she was pouring over her latest story.

She laughed quietly in his ear and his heart stuttered. Everything was so messed up. 

“Miss you, too,” she said, “Be safe.”

Nate replied on autopilot. “Always am.”

It was a pointless conversation and he refused to just hang up without saying something of substance but there was nothing else to say. He usually always had something to say to her, they could talk about the most mundane things. Now, there was nothing.

“Bye Nate,” she said with a chuckle, clearly thinking him an idiot, and it sounded so fond that Nate disconnected before he could say something stupid, something truthful, something that would sound like a confession. 

He shook himself out of his trance, more used to the jolts from the Jeep now. The city was coming up in front of them and his neck started itching with anticipation. He pulled his gun out of its holster and checked that it was loaded and ready to go as soon as flipped off the safety.

Sully didn’t comment on the fact that it was the fourth time that he had done so. He steered the car along the winding streets, past pedestrians that eyed them with interest.

“You gotta be shitting me,” Nate exclaimed when they came up on the market. “It’s right there in the middle of everything?”

He had jumped out the passenger’s side door before Sully could throw the car in park. “Hide in plain side, I guess,” the older man grumbled. “Let’s see if we can find a way in without being too obvious.”

“Subtle’s my specialty,” Nate said and jogged ahead, wading his way through the mass of people in the market. The joke had come automatically, almost easily, and Sully snorted behind him. 

They made their way to the clock tower, the large front gate looming before them. Naturally, it was locked.

“Think I can see a way around. You up for it?”

“Worry about yourself, boy.” Sully climbed after him, a little slower and stiffer than Nate but surprisingly nimble.

“What if Sam’s not here?” Nate voiced the thought that was spinning through his head.

“Then we’ll find something that’ll lead us to him. Try to keep your wits about you.”

Nate huffed at him but focused on making his way to the broken stain-glass window. The inside of the building was a little stuffy but thankfully cooler than the outside. It was almost eerily quiet, the chatter of voices from outside muffled and barely audible through the thick walls.

Nate startled when Sully dropped from the window ledge behind him, landing on his heavy boots with a thud. A trickle of sweat ran down the center of Nate’s neck, hairs standing on edge.

He rounded the corner, the clock tower opening up into a large round center. He stopped abruptly, Sully nearly bumping into him. 

Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I sorry that I'm back on my bullshit with the cliffhangers? No. Definitely not.


	13. Chapter 13

_Trying to carve our place, all in hopes we’ll be something they want_  
_But I ain’t holding my breath._  
– Radical Face, _Holy Branches_  


It wasn’t like the building had looked pristine from the outside. But the utter chaos of broken bells, the broken stairs, and the rubble of wood, metal, and stone shocked Nate a little. Glass shards crunched under his boots as he walked.

“What in the–” Sully began, looking around.

“Someone was here all right.”

Suddenly, Nate had a horrible thought. What if– He took in the rubble, as if he could look through it if he stared long enough. He was now sure that Sam had been here. But what is he still was? What if he hadn’t been fast enough in getting out of the way?

Sully patted his shoulder, startling him out of his head. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

The mess took a little more shape as they came closer. Nate looked up at the broken clock tower, the ghostly remains of wooden platforms jutting out from the walls, barely wide enough to stand on. The giant bell that had tilted over, dented and scratched, in the center of the room looked like it belonged right at the very top.

“Sigil’s covered up but this is England’s tower,” Nate said, “And from the looks of it, it’s the right one. These,” he pointed at the four statues circled around them that had remained mostly unmarred by the chaos, “are zodiac symbols that, I’m guessing, correspond to these right here.”

He swept his hand over the rubble. The head of a lion and the tail of a scorpion were still distinctly visible. Buried under a sheen of dust from the stone walls lay half a bull’s head, the tip of the horns broken off.

“Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius,” Sully counted the statues off. “That mean anything to you?”

“Nothing in connection with the pirate captains but it could simply be one of those tests Avery loves so much.” He turned on the spot, trying to spot any indication of who might have been here. Footprints, breadcrumbs, hell, he’d even take blood spatters right now.

“Nate,” Sully called from a few feet away. “Over here.”

Nate only now realized that the rubble was half-covering a staircase in the floor that led down into the unknown. The entry was blocked off by fallen pieces of wood and rock.

“Help me with this,” Nate urged, bending down to pick up a large rock. Together, they managed to shovel an entry spot free of wood and larger rubble.

“Watch your head,” Nate said automatically as he crawled through the limited space.

Sully muttered something incomprehensible behind him but Nate was already out of earshot, bounding down the stairs. “Sam?” he called into the forlorn space. “Sam, you there?”

Nothing but his own voice echoed from the underground walls. It didn’t mean that Sam wasn’t there. It also didn’t mean he had ever been here to begin with. Although the chaos upstairs strongly spoke for itself.

The space opened up at the end of the staircase, leading to a room with a center table. At least, it looked like a table. An altar almost. He stroked his hand along the edge, mind spinning to make sense of the metal carvings on the surface.

Automatically, he pulled out his notebook, ripped a couple of pages out and scratched his pencil over the markings through the paper. “This looks like a map.”

“Map to what?” Sully eyed the drawings over his shoulder. Nate crumpled the pages into his pocket. He’d figure them out later, once he had found his brother.

The three adjacent rooms were all illuminated with torches that flickered ominously against the stone walls.

“There are our captains,” Sully said from behind him when I had entered the first room. The painted faces of Adam Baldridge, Anne Bonny, and Christopher Condent looked back at them, their names embossed in large letters over the golden frames. If nothing else, Avery knew how to make an impression.

Nate wished he could muster up more excitement over this. Normally, he would be giddy beyond reason, full of adrenaline and high on the adventure. But this wasn’t about the treasure anymore. At least not as long as he had Sam back, safe and sound.

“He’s not here,” Nate voiced what he had been thinking all along. Sully made a noncommittal noise but didn’t say anything. Nate looked down at his map, the vast landscape of the island unfolding before his mind’s eye, lost as to where to start his search.

“Let’s check out the other room. Maybe there’s a clue around there somewhere.” He didn’t exactly hold out a lot of hope.

The next room merely contained the faces of Richard Want, Joseph Farrell, and William Mayes but nothing useful for their search. The third room looked like one of the torches hand fallen and taken half of the paintings with it. Nate could just barely make out the names of Yazid Al-Basra and Edward England, the other two had been burned away completely.

“We’re missing Avery and Tew,” Nate remarked. _And Sam_.

Sully grumbled, “I’m also not seeing much of a treasure.”

“I don’t think it’s here,” Nate said, bending over the table in the center room. The profiles of the metal disks were beginning to form a sort of shape in his head. “Hold on.”

He unfolded the crumpled up pages that he had sketched over a moment ago and laid them on top of each other. Through the wrinkles in the paper it was slightly difficult to make out the lines of latitude and longitude but once he held them against the flickering light of the torches, they added up to coordinates.

“I’ll be damned,” Sully said next to him while Nate’s heart sank.

 _Pro deus quod licentia._ The slogan of the secret pirate haven didn’t exactly inspire hope in him. It wasn’t that this wasn’t a gigantic breakthrough. It might very well be the final stop on their tour, the place where finally the treasure would be found.

But where was Sam? Why weren’t there any tracks or hints? Why didn’t he call or text that he had found this room? Damn, why hadn’t he called the moment he had found the tower?

_He called Sully. You were sleeping._

Nate stuffed the wrinkly pages back into his pocket.

“I’m gonna try calling him again,” he announced and punched at the screen of his phone until he had pulled up his brother’s number and pressed ‘call’.

The line rang once, twice …

He knew how pointless this was. If he was okay, Sam would have called, texted, or at the very least answered the phone an hours ago when Nate had been calling restlessly.

The call went through, the rustling in the line indicating someone was putting the phone up to their ear.

“Sam?” Nate’s voice sounded breathy to his own ears, strung-tight with apprehension. “Are you okay?”

On the other end, Rafe said, “That definitely depends on your definition of ‘okay’.”

For a second Nate couldn’t speak, his blood running cold.

Rafe used the moment of silence. “He’s alive, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Despite his panic earlier and Sully’s valid attempts at calming him down, up until this moment Nate hadn’t fully realized just how _much_ he had been worried about exactly that.

“Where is he?”

“With me.” Rafe sounded almost cheery. Cruel.

Through clenched teeth, Nate pressed, “And where is that?”

The phone suddenly vibrated in his hand.

At the same time, Rafe said, “I’ve sent you some coordinates. Meet us there. Don’t bring Grandpa.”

“Are you giving me the ‘Come alone if you want to see your brother alive?’ speech?” Nate didn’t know if he’s ever been this furious. He spat into the phone, “Want me to bring ransom, too?”

“No,” Rafe replied calmly, “The treasure will take care of that once we find it.”

Nate had intended to respond but Rafe had already hung up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m making this up as I go along. Sorry these chapters are so short.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm never going to be happy with this chapter, so I'm just going to post it. Here you go.

_I can’t remember why I joined this war and I can’t tell you what we’re fighting for.  
_ – Radical Face, _Letters Home_

“You realize we got no idea what we’re walking into?” Sully unhelpfully supplied once they were back in the Jeep, shooting across uneven ground.

Nate had insisted on driving this time. “Yes, we do. We’re walking into an opportunity to get Sam out.”

“Or an ambush.”

Nate shot him a sideway glance. “You don’t have to come. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t.”

Sully’s snort was derisive. “Yeah, right. Like that’s ever gonna happen.”

“Promise me you’ll stay on the perimeter, though. I’m not gonna chance it.”

“You don’t really think Rafe would actually do something as comic book villain as shooting the hostage because you didn’t come alone.”

Nate flinched hard at the no-nonsense image Sully painted.

The old man put a hand on his arm. “Sorry, kid.” He added, “I promise we’ll get him out with barely a scratch.”

Nate appreciated the gesture and refrained from mentioning that Sully could in no way guarantee that. In fact, even if Rafe had no intention to kill Sam – which Nate didn’t necessarily think he had – he would be in no way averse to roughing him up a little.

Not only had Sam, together with Nate, found the way to Libertalia before him, but he had also taken all notes and clues and ran after Rafe had paid for him to be released from prison in Panama. There had to be a giant grudge there and Rafe had always been unpredictable.

All in all, it didn’t bode well for Sam – or Nate for that matter, once he would get there.

 

The coordinates in the text Rafe had sent Nate led them land inward, away from King’s Bay, which was interesting in itself. Regardless, Nate was more occupied with getting there as fast as possible.

“We don’t even know if he’s actually here,” Sully said, “We’re taking a psychopath’s word for it.”

“What other option do we have?” Nate replied. _What other option do_ I _have?_ “I’m gonna see this through either way. This vendetta has gotta stop. Hell, at this point I’m practically ready to drop everything and fly back home as soon as Sam’s safe. This treasure hunt was a stupid idea anyway.”

Next to him, Sully chuckled wryly. “Kid, this is the first time in years I’ve seen you really excited about something. You can’t fool an old man.”

He had a point. Nate shook his head, “It doesn’t matter what I want. This is too dangerous, which,” he gestures to his bandaged arm and then the road before them, “all of this proves.”

“We got unlucky, is all.”

“You don’t get it,” Nate insisted against the nonchalance of the man beside him, “I can’t lose him again.”

And there it was.

“I can’t, okay? Whatever it takes.”

Sully remained silent for a moment. Then he said softly, “I know. And you won’t.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Now Sully shook his head, smiling slightly. “I’m not promising anything. I’m stating. The winds are turning in our favor, I can feel it.”

Nate eyes him with curved brows. “You sure those aren’t different winds? Sure your breakfast was all right?”

Sully let out a bark of a laugh. “Ha. There he is.”

 

One of the bridges was out and it took them awhile to find a way around it. Nate was getting increasingly antsy behind the steering wheel the closer they came.

When the land opened up before them, they came up on something that looked like a train yard. Rusty carcasses strewn on their side across the yellow dry grass with tracks running beside them that had long been broken up by roots and bushes. Insects buzzed around their heads as Nate slowed down and let the Jeep roll to a stop.

“Stay here,” he said, “We might need a quick get away. See if you can find a sniper rifle.”

“I like the way you’re thinking,” Sully replied and got out the passenger side door.

“Yeah, well, pray we don’t need it.”

Nate unholstered his weapon, keeping it by his side as he made his way through the tall grass, navigating around the rotting train wagons.

The building that had probably once been sturdy enough to house train wagons, tools, and workers, was now lying empty and silent, its roof riddled with holes. The sunlight that had made the effort to make it through into the gloomy space illuminated empty and broken shelves, the remains of a train wagon on crooked rails, and – stark against everything else that was rusted and old – wooden crates, stamped with the Shoreline logo.

Nate flicked the safety off his pistol as he made his way farther inward.

What hadn’t been directly visible from the outside was how deep the building went. It was getting darker, the sunlight more sparse, the farther inward Nate made his way. This might not only have been storage but also a factory for train parts. The remains of machinery stood shadowed against the far end of the hall.

When Nate made his crouched way around a Shoreline crate, he spotted the slumped figure a few yards down.

All of a sudden, he had a sense of deja-vu, recalling the moment he had walked straight into those pirates’ trap all those years ago on the search for Sully. He remembered the silhouette of that figure, a bag over its head like this one.

_God, please let it be him._

It was a textbook trap and not even Rafe wasn’t that obvious. The thing Rafe probably hadn’t factored in was that Nate didn’t care whether it was a trap or not. He would have come even if he had known for a fact that it was one.

His gun by his side and with quick, light steps, he approached the figure that was wearing Sam’s boots, Sam’s jeans, Sam’s sweaty T-shirt… He inches closer, distracted by the loudness of his own breathing in the silence.

He pulled the hood off with a quick whip of his hand, jumping back and training his pistol on the man in front of him.

“Jesus,” he breathed when he took in his brother’s face and instantly dropped weapon to his side, flicking the safety on before storing it.

He leaned down to his crumpled brother and tried to make out the rising and falling of his chest.

Sam’s faced was bruised, one eye ringed with dark purple, a split in his lower lip, his left cheek, and his left eyebrow. Blood had dried caky above the black eye and below his nose. His hair was hanging tangled and messy, his eyes were closed.

On impulse, he pressed his hand against Sam’s sternum, then against the side of his neck. A lively pulse jumped against the tips of his fingers and Nate’s knees nearly buckled with relief. The hard-coiled tension left him and he curled forward, his forehead pressing against his brother’s.

For a second, he was afraid he was going to cry.

He stood with effort, refusing to stop touching Sam’s neck. A split-second decision was made and he pressed his lips against Sam’s sweat-covered forehead, then, after a fractional hesitation, against Sam’s dry, cracked mouth in a poor replica of a kiss.

Anchoring himself as much as he was trying to rouse Sam, Nate curled his palm around his brother’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he whispered sharply, looking around him. The quiet was truly disconcerting.

It took nearly an entire anxiety-filled minute until Sam finally showed signs of stirring. A croaky groan escaped his lips and his eyes fluttered open, then shut again, as if it was an immense effort to him to keep them open. He moaned again, his spine straightening up a bit.

Then, reflexes faster than Nate would have given him credit for in this state, his hand shot out and clamped around Nate’s forearm.

“Hey, ’s just me,” he tried softly. His stomach sank when Sam’s eyes blinked open blearily, pupils so wide and black that there was no doubt he had been drugged with something potent.

Suddenly, as the relief had settled, the fury came back. Nate’s inside were boiling.

As if on cue, he heard the whirring of an engine and the spitting of gravel as a car came up outside. Rafe’s voice carried across the distance.

“Nate,” he said, “Long time no see.”

Nate wrenched his arm out of his brother’s surprisingly tight grip and approached the other man with large steps, growing angrier the more the distance diminished between them.

“You fucker,” he growled, hand automatically going to his gun. “I’m going to fucking murder you, you know that. I’m going to–”

Outside, he was greeted by half an armada and he stopped in his tracks.

“Do tell what you’re going to do to me,” Rafe said wryly. “But _I_ thought we could have a civilized conversation like normal people.”

“Nothing about you is normal or civilized,” Nate spat back, his hand still on his gun. There were about twenty rifles aimed right at him. Strangely, it didn’t really phase him much.

Rafe pursed his lips. “Pot and kettle, Nathan.”

“Rafe,” a women’s voice said from Nate’s other side. “Can we get this kindergarten over with and move on?”

Nadine Ross, head of Shoreline, didn’t exactly look impressed with her partner’s antics. In fact, she looked like she might be the first to start shooting just to get it over with and move on. Her cold eyes didn’t hold any fondness for either Nate or Sam. Or even Rafe, for that matter.

She didn’t even her weapon out and Nate had more respect for her than for any of the heavily armed men currently surrounding him. He retreated a few steps, back towards Sam.

“Deal,” he suggested, “Let me take my brother and get outta here. Fuck the treasure and Avery’s games, you can have it all.”

Rafe regarded him for a moment, then threw his head back and laughed. It was an unsettling sound.

“You don’t really think I’ll believe that, right?” he retorted.

Nate turned his back on Rafe, Nadine, and his men. It didn’t take as much guts as he would have thought. Maybe he was becoming jaded.

“I don’t really give a shit what you believe,” he said as he made his way back to Sam, not caring whether Nate could still hear him over the distance.


End file.
